The world’s leading development banks have met to discuss their strategy for the Decade of Action for Road Safety, at a meeting hosted in London by the FIA Foundation.
The meeting, coordinated by the World Bank, brought together senior representatives of the African Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction & Development, The European Investment Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and the Islamic Development Bank. The aim of the working group was to develop practical solutions for implementing the joint statement by seven multilateral development banks for ‘‘A Shared Approach to Managing Road Safety’, published in November 2009. That statement committed the MDBs to “ensure that safety is integrated in all phases of planning, design, construction, appraisal, operation and maintenance of road infrastructure” and to work together on actions including:
- Strengthening road safety management capacity;
- Implementing safety approaches in the planning, design, construction, operation, and maintenance of road infrastructure projects;
- Improving safety performance measures; and
- Mobilizing more and new resources for road safety.
David Ward, FIA Foundation Director General, said: “The FIA Foundation is delighted to have had the opportunity to host this significant meeting of the development banks. Since the first ‘Make Roads Safe’ report of 2006, we have been campaigning for exactly this kind of cooperation and coordination between the banks, in order to strengthen their respective approaches to road safety and to raise the issue up the policy and operational agenda internally within the banks. Over the coming years these banks collectively will provide loans in the hundreds of billions of dollars for road projects. It is vital that these road schemes put safety and the needs of local communities first”.
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