Why funding is crucial to achieve safer roads

By Barbara Mwanje

Early this year, I got involved in a minor road accident when my car hit a huge pothole on my way home along Kira - Najjera road.

The car I was driving veered off the road to the valley next to the washing bay. Thank God, I was not injured

However, my luck may not be other peoples whose vehicles, bodaboda and bicycles have being overturned by the state our roads. As government allocates billions of shillings to sectors such as agriculture, health, education and security, we need to pay more attention to funding road infrastructure to attend safer road.

Facts that deter road safety include indiscipline of boda bodas, which is the root cause of increasing motor accidents in the city, narrow and poorly made roads, potholes/road breakage, unqualified drivers, VVIP indiscipline and low emergency response at the scene of accidents are some of the reasons why the road accident catastrophe is a nightmare.

Few weeks ago, as my lane was released by the traffic officers managing traffic at the Bukoto junction, there were at least 20 boda boda riders that continued to cross the junction from all routes coming into the junction. We seemed to be surrounded, in fact ambushed by boda bodas coming from all directions despite the clear direction given by the Police officers… I looked on as many did, as a rider and his passenger found themselves positioned ever so fluidly as the epicentre of a collision of two boda bodas from different directions heading right at them, through miraculous manoeuvers by all three riders and some forgiving drivers, a tragic crash was avoided…what I cannot forget, what I will never forget, is the expression of unadulterated fear…a bone chilling, crippling fear, the horrific realisation in a split second that her time had come…. that expression was on the face of the young lady that was sitting on the boda boda that was to be the epicentre of a minimum three boda boda crash. The rider wore a helmet, she did not… I do know that the type and quality of helmet he wore may have saved him from severe or fatal injuries.

Reports indicate that in the last decade, the recorded road crash fatalities in Uganda rose from 2,579 to 3,503 in 2016 representing 25.9%. This is a result of weak leadership for road safety, declining priority of allocation of resources and diminishing capacity for road safety interventions mainly driven by low commitment to road safety matters, reduced interest of development partners in road safety and non-participation of key stakeholders.

To address challenges such as these, Members of Parliament of Uganda from the Parliamentary Forum for Road Safety (PAFROS) attended the 25th Meeting of the UN Road Safety Collaboration earlier this year hosted by the World Health Organisation (WHO) discussed the need for a legislative Action plan to address road policy development, enactment, implementation and evaluation.

The meeting featured dignitaries from the Minister of Transport of Luxembourg and other Parliamentarians from a number of countries, allowed for more in-depth discussion on next steps in planning of several road safety initiatives and also served as the occasion to launch the UN Road Safety Trust Fund.

The United Nations Road Safety Trust Fund was launched with the participation of the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, Dr Amina Mohammed, and the UN Special Envoy for Road Safety, Mr Jean Todt, and UNECE Executive Secretary Ms Olga Algayerova. Representatives of three donor organizations, Mr Saul Billingsley (FIA Foundation), Ms Manoëlle Lepoutre (Total) and Omar Vargas (3M) made commitments to the fund - including an initial pledge of USD 10,000,000 by the FIA Foundation.

The Trust Fund was to focus on strengthening the capacity of government agencies, local governments and city authorities to develop and implement road safety programmes, prioritizing projects in low and middle-income countries.

Earlier in May during the launch of this first ever United Nations Fund for global road safety. The forum is an important recognition that our collective efforts to tackle road safety must be scaled up. Governments may have provided the mandate for action, but has not provided the resources to deliver it. We urgently need a massive increase in funding, commensurate to the scale of the problem. With this $10 million pledge, the FIA Foundation is stepping up. Now we call on others to do the same!"

As a broad partnership mobilizing expertise and resources across different sectors - including government authorities, civil society organizations, multilateral development banks, United Nations entities, other international organizations and academia - the Fund will support a coordinated and holistic approach to improving global road safety.

It is our hope that some of this funding will trickle down to Uganda given that one of the main issues affecting and stalling the implementation of many road safety interventions by the several Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies as well as civil society is the lack of funding.

Speaking at the launch of "UGANDA'S ROAD SAFETY LEGISLATIVE ACTION PLAN", a project supported by the World Bank's Global Road Safety Facility and being implemented by Safe Way Right Way, the Parliament of Uganda and the Ministry of Works and Transport, Hon. Bagiire Minster of State for Transport while addressing the speaker of parliament said underfunding of road safety activities remains a very big challenge for the sector. He added that improvement in road infrastructure in various parts of the country has not been accompanied by the requisite funding for road safety activities to ensure these improved roads do not claim lives. The funding allocated to road safety has not been commensurate with the funding allocated to road construction/maintenance.

Another critical development signals a commitment by the Speaker of Parliament who also happens to be the patron of the Parliamentary Forum for Road Safety (PAFROS) recently pledging her support to work with fellow members of parliament to deliver the legislation that will support government agencies to develop and implement policies that will ensure a systematic approach to road safety improvement in Ugandan including the issue of funding.

Without secure and stable funding, it is hard to sustain the policies necessary to achieve lasting reductions in casualty levels. Finance is needed for a wide range of interventions including road engineering and maintenance, road traffic policing and enforcement, driver and vehicle licensing, emergency and hospital services and to maintain a coordinating lead agency with reliable data sources.

The number of accidents globally and particularly here at home in Uganda, remains unacceptably high.  In the past months alone, we have been reminded of the deeply distressing personal realities behind such stories. At the current rate of progress, target 3.6 of the Sustainable Development Goals — to halve, by 2020, the number of deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents — will not be met if we do not take action; rally political support, come up with sustainable road safety funding mechanisms and mobilise multi sectorial commitment to prioritise road safety.

The writer is the Chief Executive Director Safe Way Right Way