events

SSATP Road Safety Program
Brief on the April 9-10, 2014
WARSO/SSATP Workshop in Sierra Leone on African Road Safety Management Framework
 

A two-day Workshop jointly organized by the West African Road Safety Organization (WARSO) and SSATP took place on April 9 and 10, 2014, at Bintumani Hotel, in Freetown, Sierra Leone, to review the draft Africa Road Safety Management Framework.

The Workshop was attended by over 80 participants from 10 of the 15 WARSO member countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo) and Ethiopia. Other invitees who unfortunately could not attend were Zambia, Kenya, Namibia and Uganda.

The workshop discussed global road safety situation with special focus on Africa. The key messages were: (i) The African case was indeed unacceptably grave and that it was projected to deteriorate; (ii) Africa was not on course toward the attainment of the UN Decade goals; and (iii) There was an urgent need for professionally sound management of road safety in Africa. 

Road safety management practice in Africa was discussed through an in-depth review of four case studies drawn from Benin, Ethiopia, Ghana, and Nigeria. The process revealed that: (i) Lead agencies had diverse structural models, most of them with limited influence beyond the transport sector; (ii) They were generally ill-equipped to carry out their functions; and (iii) A lack of serious commitment and inconsistency in approach were serious fundamental set-backs.

The workshop discussed lead agency strengths, fundamental challenges and solutions. It was obvious that except for legal mandates that many agencies had, only a few could claim to have funding and political support as notable strengths. Beyond the normal challenges, it was felt that lead agencies had failed to tackle high impact interventions (e.g. mandatory safety audits, elimination of road unworthy vehicles, and professionalism in law enforcement). One of the possible solutions in relation to enforcement function was to transfer it to lead agencies.

With the above backdrop, the participants reviewed the chapters of the draft Road Safety Management Framework titled: “Managing Road Safety in Africa, A guide for National Lead Agencies”. The document’s purpose is to provide the fundamentals for effective management of road safety in Africa. It echoes the message that effective road safety management is a product of three interrelate elements: institutional management functions that produce interventions that in turn produce results.  The recommendations made in the Workshop included the use of African "best practices" as examples, and introduction of a section on economic and financial evaluation of road crashes. 

Presentations from the Freetown workshop

• Road Safety Management
• Presentation Benin
• Presentation Ethiopia
• Presentation Ghana
• Presentation Nigeria

The input from the workshop will be used to finalize the document for peer review, and dissemination at a workshop being organized by SSATP in collaboration with UNECA in June.

Road Safety Management Workshop Annoucement -- June 10-11, 2014