Meeting the management challenges of the Decade of Action for Road Safety

In low- and middle-income countries, the high price paid for mobility in terms of human loss and suffering is forecast to rise to unprecedented levels. More than 50 million deaths and 500 million serious injuries on the world's roads can be projected with some certainty over the first 50 years of the 21st century, unless sustained new initiatives are taken. This paper addresses the emergence of road safety as a development priority over the last decade and the management challenges facing the planned global response aimed at bringing road safety outcomes in developing countries under control. It outlines the decade of advocacy that created the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011–2020 and related Global Plan, and highlights the concern that over the coming decade low and middle income countries will face considerable management challenges in successfully implementing related measures and sustaining their delivery. The paper discusses new road safety management tools that have been developed by the World Bank and ISO to provide assistance to countries and organizations within an integrated framework that ensures that measures taken are properly sequenced and adjusted to their absorptive and learning capacities. It concludes that strengthened institutions and the accelerated knowledge creation and transfer central to this, plus scaled-up investment and increased international cooperation and development aid are critical to the successful achievement of the Global Plan's ambitious goal.