Report, by the World Bank’s Global Road Safety Facility, will support decision-making with key data, social and economic assessments for all 125 low- and middle-income countries.
Stockholm, Sweden, February 19, 2020 — The World Bank’s Global Road Safety Facility (GRSF) presented the Guide for Road Safety Opportunities and Challenges: Low- and Middle-income Country Profiles during the 3rd Global High-Level Conference on Road Safety in Stockholm. The guide gives a precise assessment on the magnitude and complexity of road safety challenges faced by low-and middle-income countries (LMICs) and helps policy makers understand the road safety framework in context of their own country systems and performance. The guide also helps countries to build and appreciate the business case for vital road safety investment.
One major barrier to improving this situation is a lack of understanding of the problem due to deficient information. Many vital metrics of road safety performance are not measured effectively in most LMICs, including the actual number of road crash fatalities and serious injuries. Measures of progress such as safety rating of roads, age and safety of vehicles, and safety behaviors such as helmet or seatbelt use are also commonly not known. This limits every aspect of road safety management and delivery, including resource allocation, advocacy, intervention selection, and prioritization of resources.
Information is required to guide progress across all pillars of road safety—management, roads, speed, vehicles, road users, and post-crash care— in order to understand deficiencies and opportunities, set ambitious targets for improvement, monitor progress and develop advocacy and commitment for interventions that work.
The Road Safety Country Profiles present information on all these pillars along with information on the current status for each country and region along with extensive information on key risk factors, issues and opportunities. This report provides a baseline for monitoring progress on vital metrics for road safety. It will be updated to measure progress on evidence-based road safety measures during the current decade.
The report also guides action: Clear advice and references regarding robust policies and other interventions are provided to countries facing specific challenges, allowing them to take direct action on priority issues and opportunities.
The guide was developed by GRSF together with the World Bank, with funding support from UK Aid and the World Bank. GRSF has been a leading global actor for the global road safety agenda and plays a vital role in providing guidance, leadership, and funding to LMICs, international partner organizations, academia, and NGOs via a wide range of research studies, guidance documents and technical support.
The GRSF gratefully acknowledges the many sources employed to calculate various measure. In particular, we thank to the World Health Organization (WHO); the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME); the International Road Assessment Programme (iRAP); and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) for the significant use we have made of their data.
The Country Profiles and the Guide can be found on the GRSF website: roadsafetyfacility.org.
About GRSF
The Global Road Safety Facility (GRSF) is a global multi-donor fund hosted by the World Bank. Its mission is to help governments develop road safety management capacity and scale up road safety delivery in LMICs.
GRSF provides funding, knowledge, and technical assistance designed to scale-up the efforts of LMICs to build their scientific, technological, managerial and delivery capacities for road safety.
GRSF operates as a hybrid grant-making global program, allowing it to distribute funding externally for global, regional and country activities, and internally through World Bank-executed grants, which enhance the work of the World Bank’s transport Global Practice and leverage road safety investments in transport operations in client countries. GRSF also directly delivers road safety projects, research, peer-reviewed papers, reports, in-country guidance, and manuals to enhance road safety knowledge, capacity, and delivery.
