Lord Robertson and Douglas Alexander discuss making roads safe

The Make Roads Safe campaign has discussed its demand for safe road infrastructure with the UK’s International Development Secretary.

Lord Robertson, the Chairman of the Commission for Global Road Safety has met with the UK’s Secretary of State for International Development, the Rt Hon Douglas Alexander MP to discuss the action needed to reverse the rising number of road traffic deaths and injuries in low and middle income countries. Stressing the negative impact that road crashes are having on the worldwide effort to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, Lord Robertson highlighted the effectiveness of road traffic injury (RTI) prevention in avoiding poverty and health losses. Lord Robertson also reported on the recent UN General Assembly decision to mandate the first ever UN Ministerial Conference on Global Road Safety to be held in Moscow in the Autumn 2009.

(l-r) Douglas Alexander, Secretary of State for International Development, UK, Lord Robertson, Chairman, Commission for Global Road Safety and Tony Bliss, Lead Road Safety Specialist, World Bank

The meeting examined the scope to integrate RTI prevention into the Department for International Development ‘s (DFID) existing transport related programmes and work with multilateral agencies such as the World Bank. At present the World Bank and the major regional development banks commit over $4 billion each year to road investment programmes but without any shared or systematic approach to road safety rating, assessment and design. However, the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (2005) gives a mandate to the IFIs and bilateral donors to try to harmonize their approach to road infrastructure safety. Meanwhile innovative approaches to road infrastructure safety being developed by the International Road Assessment Programme (iRAP) and there is considerable scope to develop this kind of work in Sub-Saharan Africa, which has the world’s most dangerous road networks.

In response to these very constructive discussions, Douglas Alexander offered to explore how DFID can engage with these issues especially as regards road infrastructure safety and the role of the World Bank. Also attending the meeting was Tony Bliss, the World Bank’s lead specialist on road safety and David Ward of the FIA Foundation and currently Chairman of the World Bank’s Global Road Safety Facility. A major conference on safe road infrastructure will be organised by the Make Roads Safe campaign in London on July 4th. See here for details.

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