Scaling up road safety activities in World Bank programs in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

Paper presented at the 23rd Annual Southern African Transport Conference 12 - 15 July 2004 "Getting recognition for the importance of transport", CSIR International Convention Centre, Pretoria, South Africa. During 2002, the World Bank commissioned CSIR Transportek (together with Africon) and SITRASS (together with INRETS) from France, to audit the road safety aspects of their current and planned sector programmes and individual projects in Sub-Sahara Africa. The main sectors investigated included: Transport, Health, Education and Urban Development. Interviews were conducted with the World Bank Task Team Leaders in the various sectors. World Bank Projects were audited, other country documentation investigated, and some interviews conducted, in the following countries: French speaking: Benin, Burundi, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Mail, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Chad, Togo. English speaking: Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. Findings relate to World Bank internal structures to ensure project follow-up and monitoring and influencing the content of projects; road safety knowledge and capacity; and channels of intervention. Findings within the countries comment on the potential of regional harmonization, road safety management and integrity of governance at country level; road safety as a health priority; capacity building, technical assistance and training; knowledge base, community structures; road safety audits; comprehensive transport planning, comprehensive road safety programmes, infrastructure planning and design, accident and injury databases and road safety diagnoses; education, driver training and licensing, vehicle checks, traffic laws and regulation, road safety awareness campaigns and trauma care. Ten critical goals are identified to ensure that the World Bank integrates road safety in their Transport, Health, Urban, and Education programmes. The most important goal for the World Bank is to ensure that their own infrastructure programmes in any sector do not generate accidents, through conducting the necessary quality assurance audits at different project levels. Other goals that may influence project content include the improvement of road safety management in the countries, attention to injuries as a health problem, improved information for policy making, implementation and monitoring; evaluation of engineering corrective measures for especially the non-motorised transport environment, the improvement of road safety skills and knowledge in Africa, focus on vulnerable road users, focus on public transport, and interventions aiming at transforming road user behaviour.