December 2012 Number 180 75188 www.worldbank.org/enbreve A regular series of notes highlighting recent lessons emerging from the operational and analytical program of the World Bank‘s Latin America and Caribbean Region (LAC). The Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011 – 2020: Lessons from Argentina by Veronica Raffo and Tony Bliss Road Safety as a Development Priority Every year, around 1.3 million people die and millions are seriously injured on the world’s roads. These disastrous outcomes will worsen with the growing rate of car ownership. For low and middle-income countries, the sheer number, scale, and cost of these tragedies make road safety a development priority. Over 90 percent of the world’s road fatalities occur in developing countries, which have only 48 percent of the world’s registered vehicles. Estimates of the total cost of traffic injuries are between 1 and 3 percent of total Gross National Product (GNP). A 2003 World management capacity, (ii) infrastructure safety, (iii) vehicle safety, (iv) road user behavior, and (v) post-crash care. This Bank analysis estimated that, between 2000 and 2020, integrated development perspective is also reflected in the the road crash fatality rate in Latin America and the World Bank’s new transport sector business strategy. Caribbean will increase by about 50 percent, to the highest regional fatality rate in the world (31 deaths Improving Road Safety per 100,000), unless road safety efforts are intensified On World Health Day in 2004, the Bank and the World and new measures are introduced. Health Organization (WHO) issued the joint World Report on Road Traffic Injury Prevention. The report’s strategic In response to this public health crisis, the United initiatives to improve road safety include: Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020 sets an ambitious goal to stabilize and then reduce by • Identify a lead agency in government to guide the half the predicted level of traffic fatalities in low and national road traffic safety effort. middle-income countries by 2020. This goal should save • Assess the problem, policies, and institutional around 5 million lives, avoid 50 million serious injuries, settings relating to road traffic injury and the and provide an economic benefit of more than US$3 capacity for road traffic injury prevention. trillion. Impacts on this scale will enhance country and regional development opportunities. In line with this • Prepare a national road safety strategy and plan of goal, the Global Plan for the Decade of Action for Road action. Safety 2011-2020 identified five priorities: (i) road safety 1 • Allocate financial and human resources to address the problem. Box 1: The Safe System Approach • Implement specific actions to prevent road traffic crashes, minimize injuries and their consequences Recommendations of the Safe System approach include: and evaluate the impact of these actions. • Support the development of national capacity and • Address all elements of the road traffic system in an international cooperation. integrated way. • Emphasize the reduction of death and long-term injury rather than the prevention of crashes. Implementing these recommendations require institutional • Accept that road users will remain fallible and strengthening initiatives that are properly sequenced and crashes will occur. adjusted to the country’s absorptive and learning capacity. • Manage the transfer of crash energy to ensure that The challenge is to accelerate the shift from weak to road users are not exposed to crash forces likely to strong institutional management capacity and benefit from result in death or serious injury. lessons learned. The Bank’s results oriented Safe System • Accentuate the shared and accountable approach encourages governments to develop such a responsibility of designers and users of the road systematic approach (see Box 1). network for achieving road safety results. In its application of the new guidelines, the Argentina • Demand equity in addressing the safety needs of Road Safety Project demonstrates some innovative features both motorized and non-motorized users. that can usefully guide the design and implementation of • Align with other sustainable development goals and transformative road safety investment projects aimed at seek co-benefits such as improved local air quality, achieving sustainable improvements in results. greenhouse gas reduction, energy security, poverty reduction, social inclusiveness and occupational Empower the Lead Agency health and safety. The National Road Safety Agency (Agencia Nacional de • Strengthen all elements of the road safety Seguridad Vial, ANSV) was envisioned as the lead agency management system, especially institutional in the Federal Agreement on Traffic and Road Safety management functions. between the federal government, the provinces, and the City of Buenos Aires. The federal government’s decision to empower and resource the ANSV confirmed the agency’s “ownership� of the nation’s road safety and its management of targeted partnerships. The project addressed the ANSV’s The challenge for the ANSV was to exercise its powers and roles and responsibilities in a complex federal system and achieve its mission within a federal framework that provided implement measures that could legitimate it with key for significant provincial and local government autonomy. partners. ANSV’s response to this challenge included national registry systems for driver’s licenses, traffic records, and infractions. The federal role was institutionalized and the ANSV’s ownership of road safety issues was cemented in positive partnerships with provincial and local governments. Collaborate and Partner with the Health Sector The project was prepared as a collaborative effort and partnership between the transport and health sector teams in the Argentina World Bank Country Office and their counterparts in the relevant government agencies. This partnership deepened the understanding of road deaths and injuries as a public health priority and led to more effective and efficient data management initiatives. The partnership improved emergency response capacity by 2 a regional emergency network with response training, assessment of trauma capabilities, and emergency care. In addition, a new data collection structure improved the reporting of deaths and injuries by health centers and hospitals. The collaboration also resulted in the use of more innovative evaluation tools to build the business case for the project, with benefits expressed in terms of health gains (expressed in terms of monetized healthy life years saved) and willingness to pay for ‘statistical’ lives saved (expressed in GDP terms). Establish a Road Safety Observatory To build the results management platform, the project invested in road safety monitoring systems and analysis tools in the National Road Safety Observatory and related Engage Provincial and Local Governments, interventions in demonstration corridors. The Observatory NGOs, and the Private Sector established a new data collection system for road crashes. The project’s inclusive approach delivers road safety Surveys of seat belt usage, lights, helmet usage, and interventions in the demonstration corridors and elsewhere. distractive factors will provide baseline data and monitor A number of initiatives are proving to be highly effective progress in reducing road traffic injuries and fatalities. The in developing a unified approach, a sense of shared Observatory has developed a close partnership with the responsibility, and a strong commitment to achieving the International Road Traffic Accident Database Group (IRTAD) ANSV’s mission and ensuring its success as a lead agency. through a twinning program with its Spanish road agency Funding and other support encourage NGOs and the counterpart, the Dirección General de Trafico (DGT). IRTAD private sector to participate. An incentive fund catalyzes is now reporting and providing global access to provisional provincial and municipal engagement in the delivery of data from Argentina. the strategy. As a result, road safety advocacy efforts have been strengthened and victims groups in particular Target Police Engagement have become more engaged in working with government partners to improve safety outcomes. A crucial aspect of the ANSV’s powers concerned enforcement of traffic safety laws. Legal reforms assigned The incentive fund brings the issue of road safety to the to the ANSV the responsibility to promote and coordinate forefront of provincial and municipal government agendas. traffic control and supervision of police and security forces at It has financed local strategic plans, mass media campaigns, the federal, provincial, and city levels. On national highways, and low-cost infrastructure improvements. Its output-based provincial roads, and urban streets, ANSV cooperates with funding ensures a fast and responsive disbursement to the agencies with jurisdiction for traffic safety enforcement. provincial and local governments. This creates appropriate In all cases, security forces and police are committed to incentives for all jurisdictions to engage quickly in support communicating details of any road crash to the ANSV. of a country-wide implementation of ANSV’s strategy. New and inclusive initiatives include the creation of an ANSV This new institutional arrangement empowered the consultative committee representing nearly 100 NGOs, to ANSV to take a strong leadership role, set the scene for give advice and contribute to the improvement of ANSV’s a comprehensive delivery of road safety enforcement internal work and proposed public policies. Their strong services, and build a good reputation and trust with civil commitment to improved road safety is reflected in their society. ANSV’s control and surveillance unit, distinctively concerts, radio and TV awareness campaigns, seminars, and branded for high visibility, partnered with designated law workshops. enforcement agencies, and created a unique deterrence capability with a transparently managed, funded, and Develop Global and Regional Knowledge targeted approach to enforcement. With its police partners, Partnerships ANSV also developed and implemented road safety campaigns, targeting speeding, drunk driving, and failure To assist the development of the National Road Safety to use safety belts and helmets. The campaigns were Observatory, the project takes advantage of global and launched at high profile media events and complemented regional knowledge partnerships. The IRTAD, in partnership by extensive advertising. with the World Bank’s Global Road Safety Facility (GRSF), 3 supports a twinning opportunity between its Spanish allows the ANSV to engage in a purposeful way with a wide member agencies and agency partners in Argentina to body of partners and to legitimate its role with lower tiers provide data management services. Similar initiatives with of government and the community at the more ‘grass roots’ the International Road Policing Organization (RoadPOL) level. Finally, the project stressed the value of monitoring and the International Road Assessment Programme (IRAP) and evaluation (M&E) to shape the ANSV’s results focus. also support the law enforcement agencies and enhance safety measures in the demonstration corridors. At a supranational level, this project shows that a South- South dialogue and action on a regional basis can be Lessons Learned and Looking Ahead stimulated when best practice measures are taken and given high visibility. The Argentina Road Safety Project has The project is in its third year of implementation and created interest in other Latin American countries facing is making promising progress. Between 2008 and 2010, the challenges of creating a lead agency to manage their fatalities from road crashes have decreased by almost 12 national road safety effort. It has also spurred action to percent, and deaths per 100,000 registered vehicles did so create a Regional Road Safety Observatory and its national by 22 percent (despite a 9 percent increase in the number of development process in partnership with the IRTAD Group registered cars). As the lead agency, the ANSV contributed and its Spanish counterparts is serving as a model to assist to saving an estimated 2,034 lives between 2008 and 2010. the related development of regional protocols. During the same period, the use of seat belts and helmets increased by 57 percent and 65 percent, respectively, and The successful the number of positive control tests for drinking alcohol delivery of both while driving declined by of 22 percent. phases of the project The project’s design and implementation are already will complete the providing some valuable lessons learned. To begin, the “establishment project adapted the World Bank’s guidelines to Argentina’s phase� of a long- unique circumstances and the capacity of its road safety term investment management system. In addition, ensuring the correct strategy and set sequencing of initiatives and the timely creation of the the scene for the ANSV enabled the strategies to be owned, directed, and “growth phase,� during which time sufficient capacity will firmly grounded in well-resourced partnerships and a manage a sustained and considerably scaled-up program performance management framework. The project also of investment across the nation. At that stage, Argentina recognized the importance of empowering and funding should reasonably be expected to achieve and sustain the ANSV to manage the inevitable complexity of national safety results approaching those of the better performing road safety, and engaging traffic safety police to address the high-income countries. The benefits of such a strategy will historical mistrust of the police. This facilitated the program’s far outweigh the costs of implementation—and the seeds effectiveness, efficiency, and community acceptance. for such success will be found in the current project. Well-focused national leadership and supporting resources About the Authors can catalyze effective partnership engagement with provincial and local governments, NGOs, and the private Veronica is a Senior Infrastructure Specialist for Latin America sector to achieve consensus on desired results and the and the Caribbean Region and Tony Bliss is a Road Safety measures to achieve them. In the case of Argentina, the Advisor for the Transport Division of the Transport, Water and Incentive Fund has proved to be a powerful innovation that ICT Department. 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