Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SaferAfrica (Innovating dialogue and problems appraisal for a safer Africa)

Teaser

According to the Global Status Report on Road Safety 2015 of the World Health Organization (WHO), “road traffic injuries claim more than 1.2 million lives each year and have a huge impact on health and development”.The risk of road traffic death varies significantly by...

Summary

According to the Global Status Report on Road Safety 2015 of the World Health Organization (WHO), “road traffic injuries claim more than 1.2 million lives each year and have a huge impact on health and development”.
The risk of road traffic death varies significantly by region and the disparity in road safety results is increasing. In the WHO Africa region, road traffic fatalities increased from 24.1 per 100,000 population in 2010 to 26.6 per 100,000 population in 2013. Over the same period, road fatality rates in the WHO Europe region improved from 10.3 per 100,000 population to 9.3 per 100,000 population. Road trauma in Africa is expected to worsen further, with fatalities per capita projected to double from 2015 to 2030.
Several actions are already on-going, and important policy documents are already in place, paving the way for road safety improvements. Based on the United Nation’s (UN’s) “2011-2020 a Decade of Action for Road Safety”, the African Union (AU) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) defined the African Road Safety Action Plan 2011-2020 (hereinafter “Action Plan”).
Through the adoption of the African Road Safety Charter, the Member States of the AU aimed to build a political framework to enable road safety improvement. In particular, based on the provisions of the Action Plan, specific duties and commitments for the States that ratified or accepted the Charter were defined.
In 2015, UNECA conducted a Mid-term Review of the Action Plan to assess the progress made by each country. The output of this review is constituted in the Roadmap for Accelerating the Implementation of the African Road Safety Action Plan.
These considerations suggest that Europe could play an important role in supporting African countries in improving their road safety and traffic management conditions to achieve better performance.
The next (and urgent) step, as targeted by the call, involves capitalising on the analysed political commitments in order to support and enhance existing activities.
In this respect, the general objective of SaferAfrica is to create favourable conditions and opportunities for the effective implementation of actions for road safety and traffic management in African countries by setting up a Dialogue Platform between Africa and Europe. This initiative focuses on using effective tools, embedding innovative approaches and identifying pragmatic and fundable next steps to address identified road safety and traffic management problems. The Platform comprises European and African regional and national authorities (i.e. Institutions) with key road safety responsibilities, as well as other important stakeholders (e.g. International Institutions, Research Institutes and non-governmental organisations).
The Platform also provides guidance and institutional support for selecting and promoting actions to be realised in specific countries. Platform goals are:
• Contributing to developing/designing actions related to the Action Plan together with individual African countries/organisations.
• Assessing progress toward the goals of the Action Plan and, based on assessments of the solutions adopted by various countries, releasing recommendations.
• Increasing the endogenous capacities of African countries.
• Fostering the adoption of the principles of the Safe System approach.
An additional objective is to increase the awareness of African stakeholders and end users on road safety by means of an African Road Safety Observatory. It will provide in-depth information and data to the African stakeholders, as well as a set of recommendations to improve road safety situation. The Observatory also includes the Dialoague Platform interface.

Work performed

Main SaferAfrica activities so far refer to setting up of the conditions to foster the Dialogue on road safety during the second project period.
Road safety data have been collected through focused questionnaires and anlaysis have been performed in order to define the set of minimum and standardised road traffic crash data that should be recommended for African countries. In parallel, the design and implementation of an African Road Safety Observatory has been started.
Road safety management capacity reviews have been performed in African countries representing the general conditions of the five African regions. Interviews with stakeholders and decision makers have been performed (and some are on-going) being the basis for the preparation of recommendations for future actions on road safety management.
An in-depth analysis of the current training modules on road safety existing in African countries have been performed, leading to the definition of training manual for universities and for public body stakeholders. E-learning modules through which these training modules could be exploited have also been studied. Development of e-lerning tools and of twinning programs on road safety training are currently on-going.
A set of good road safety practices (both in African and in Europe) has been identified as standard exmaples of what could be applied in Africa to improve road safety conditions. A methodological framework for the transferability analysis of these good practices has been developed. It will be applied in selected African countries.
A significant part of the activities focused on the assessment of the application of the African Road Safety Action Plan by countries in Africa. A number of information have been collected to this aim and stakeholders have been contacted to discuss about the Plan application.
All the above mentioned activities and outcomes provide basic concepts to develop recommendations to improve road safety. A central part of SaferAfrica consists in establishing a Dialogue with African and European stakeholders about these recommendations. So far, the Dialogue Platform of SaferAfrica has been established. Institutional stakeholders (such as UNECA, World Bank, African Development Bank, WHO, FIA, etc.) have been invited to participate to the Management Board of the Dialogue Platform. Moreover, currently, more than 100 stakeholders compose the SaferAfrica network.
A web tool supporting the Dialogue with stakeholders has also been developed.
Workshops have been organised to discuss with selected stakeholders about SaferAfrica results and road safety issues.

Final results

The primary expected impact of SaferAfrica consists in reducing the road accident burden through the implementation of a formal structure for African road safety champions to meet and foster efficient management and interventions.
The target audience of the Platform includes primarily decision-makers and funders directly involved in the definition and implementation of the Action Plan. Several other stakeholders take part in the Platform activities. These stakeholders contribute to promoting Platform activities and disseminating the project results widely in order to achieve the greatest possible impact. As a result, SaferAfrica will impact African society as a whole by improving the road safety conditions of African residents. Other relevant impacts of SaferAfrica will include:
• Increased knowledge and understanding of the status of and barriers to attaining road safety goals in Africa.
• Country road safety policies and strategies better aligned to the Action Plan and its goals.
• Greater knowledge of Safe System principles.
• Dissemination and implementation of highly effective road safety interventions.

Website & more info

More info: http://www.saferafrica.eu.