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Thursday, May 12, 2011 - 05.45 GMT |
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Lets put brakes
on road accidents – WB Country Director |
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Improving Road Safety is complex and multi sectoral by essence. This is not something one individual or an organization can do alone. It will take all of us to Act Now and Act Together, Diarietou Gaye, World Bank Country Director for Sri Lanka and the Maldives said.
"Thus, Let us all resolve today to accelerate our partnership approach and put the brakes on road accidents," the World Bank Country Director said speaking at National Road Safety Conference held in Colombo yesterday.
We are extremely happy that Sri Lanka has risen to the challenge and through a lengthy process of consultation and coordination with all of the relevant Government agencies; they have come up with an agreed action plan which clearly identifies how Sri Lanka will address road safety, she said.
The World Bank Country Director adds: "But the biggest challenge is yet to come: The successful implementation and monitoring of the action plan. Sri Lanka’s success in overcoming challenges in road safety will be judged on the results achieved.
Here is the full text of the speech by World Bank Country Director:
Your Excellency, President Mahinda Rajapaksa,
Hon. Ministers,
Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen
I would like to thank the organizers of this conference for giving me the opportunity today to speak about this very important subject: road safety. Last Sunday, I read some disturbing stories in the Sunday papers of lives lost, families destroyed and children traumatized, all due to road accidents. According to the Sunday Times report, quoting statistics of 2010, in Sri Lanka 2,483 people died from road accidents, the majority of which were due to speeding, overtaking and drunk driving.
In 2009, Sri Lanka reported 33,757 road accidents; a number comparable to Portugal as per International Roads Federation statistics. The dramatic difference however, is that the number of fatalities in Sri Lanka was almost three times higher than in Portugal. As I will develop later, the number of fatalities is somehow only “the tip of the iceberg”. Indeed, the Sri Lankan health sector provides care to all injured which is estimated to be around 100,000 persons every year with more than 80% of them being in their working age. We can imagine the dramatic impact on their direct and related families.
Let us all resolve today to accelerate our partnership approach and put the brakes on road accidents.
This is not something one individual or an organization can do alone. It will take all of us to Act Now and Act Together.
Improving Road Safety is complex and multi sectoral by essence. Apart from the design of roads, we need to look at vehicle designs, behavioral aspects, law enforcement, post-crash emergency care and management and so on. We need therefore to involve Ministries of Transport, Highways, Health, Education, law enforcement agencies, Trade and Commerce, Media etc…
Let us briefly take a look at the global picture. About 1.3 million people are killed on the road each year, 50 million suffer severe injuries which can leave them disabled for life and push their families into extreme poverty.
What does it mean globally?
It means every minute there are two people killed and 77 people seriously injured;
It means every three minutes a child is killed in a road crash.
It means that over 3% of GDP is lost every year because of these road crashes;
that’s almost $520 billion a year in material and health damages, lost income and other losses.
It means vast burdens are placed on individuals, families and societies.
Dr. Mehta, will share with us more information from World Health Organization on the impact of road accidents.
Now the Decade of Action for Road Safety begins. Our goal is to save 5 million lives and prevent 50 million injuries in developing countries for an estimated benefit of at least $3 trillion.
Over 100 countries have committed to this ambitious goal and the foundation has been built. This Decade of Action will help us build momentum and raise awareness among decision makers and the general public. It will also help us pool resources together to meet the challenge, and share the responsibilities to make a huge impact on saving lives.
Today we have the commitment of us all: from government officials, international organizations, non-government organizations, academia, and other stakeholders. We come from all over the World for one single reason: to make the world a safer place.
We are extremely happy that Sri Lanka has risen to the challenge and through a lengthy process of consultation and coordination with all of the relevant Government agencies; they have come up with an agreed action plan which clearly identifies how Sri Lanka will address road safety. This is clearly a huge achievement and the credit should go to the Parliamentary Select Committee, Road Safety Council, Ministries of Transport, Highways, Health and the Police. But the biggest challenge is yet to come: The successful implementation and monitoring of the action plan. Sri Lanka’s success in overcoming challenges in road safety will be judged on the results achieved.
The World Bank strives for economic development, poverty reduction, as well as capital and knowledge transfers. Infrastructure development such as building roads and investments in the health sector accounts for a large portion of our lending portfolio, because they are essential to economic development.
Last month, the Bank’s president Robert Zoellick announced that the seven multilateral development banks are supporting the global call for action through the Multilateral Development Bank’s Road Safety Initiative. This partnership for action will put in place a shared approach to road safety management and will aim to help the Decade of Action achieve its ambitious goal.
Through partnership, we are committed to sharing practices and knowledge to strengthen road safety management capacity. We will work together on improving infrastructure safety and on road safety performance measurement. We will also work together to raise the resources we need to deliver a road safety transformation in our client countries.
In addition to this, in Sri Lanka we have supported a capacity assessment through a grant provided by the Global Road Safety Facility. We will support selected investments from the road safety action plan that will have a high impact and we will support these through our road and health projects.
In the emerging context of heightened global concern and sharing of relevant knowledge, Sri Lanka is also presented with a unique opportunity to harness and adapt international best practices to improve its road safety results far more rapidly than high-income countries were able to achieve in the last century.
Your Excellency, let me conclude by saying that as learned from other countries worldwide, addressing the issue of road safety is a long term endeavor which has been successful in many countries during the past decade. However, to secure such positive outcome, it requires a strong and continuous commitment of the Government at its highest level. We are very proud indeed that in Sri Lanka, His Excellency President Rajapaksa is here today taking the lead in this important battle. This is the best guarantee of success. In the well documented case of Costa Rica President and Nobel Prize winner Oscar Sanchez took the lead in this combat not only in his country but also in the whole of Latin America with his campaign “Make the Road Safe”. I am sure Sri Lanka will also take the lead in this region on road safety in the years to come.
The Bank is really proud to be engaged as a partner with Sri Lanka to work together to improve road safety, to protect road users, and to make a contribution to the achievement of the global initiative on Decade of Action.
Thank you for your attention.
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