UK Prime Minister David Cameron has described the Decade of Action as ‘a vital opportunity…we simply cannot go on like this’.
An influential report by MPs published on 7 October calls on the UK Government to honour a financial commitment to support road safety in developing countries.
The House of Commons International Development Select Committee report reveals that the Department for International Development (DfID) has reneged on its pledge made in 2009 at the high-level Moscow Ministerial on global road safety to give grant support to protect vulnerable road users affected by donor-led road building projects in developing countries.
The report highlights that road crashes are forecast to become the leading cause of death for young people over five years old worldwide. Yet while the Government has acknowledged the scale of road casualties in developing countries, Ministers have decided not to release the £1.5 million pledged in 2009 to the World Bank Global Road Safety Facility.
The report says:
“DFID claims to place a high priority on road safety, yet it does not directly fund road safety work. It is failing to honour the pledge it made in 2009 to give grant support to the World Bank Global Road Safety Facility of £1.5 million. DFID should review its decision; it should stand by its word and find this funding.”
The independent Commission for Global Road Safety, chaired by Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, gave evidence to the Commons International Development Committee highlighting that DfID had failed to provide the promised support for the Facility.
In response to the report, David Ward, Executive Secretary of the Commission and FIA Foundation Director General said:
“It is astonishing that the Government has dropped this commitment to road safety. DfID has actually acknowledged that road traffic injuries, which kill more people than Malaria, must be a priority yet is failing to provide any serious support to international efforts to tackle this crisis. We commend MPs on the Development Select Committee for calling on Ministers to honour the pledge.”
The UK Government was one of the signatories to the United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety, which aims to save five million lives and prevent 50 million serious injuries on the world’s roads over the next 10 years.
During the launch of the Decade of Action earlier this year, Prime Minister David Cameron said that reducing the death rate in developing countries must be an “urgent priority for the international community”.
The International Development Select Committee report said that in reviewing the evidence it had been “struck by the high burden of deaths caused by road traffic accidents in developing countries”. The Committee now intends to carry out a fuller inquiry into DfID’s support for road safety, the report says.
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