Strengthening Road Safety Management : System Review Guidelines

Overview & Synopsis

Road safety practice is concerned with managing the safety of the road transport network by a system comprising multiple public institutions focused on improving safety performance. In good-practice countries, a designated lead agency plays a defining role in specifying, directing, and integrating this system management process. The guidelines presented here outline procedures that policy makers can use to review a country’s system management process, identify system management strengthening priorities, and specify initiatives to address them. They build on experience gained from the previous editions of Global Road Safety Facility (GRSF) guidelines which supported implementation of the recommendations of the World Report on Road Traffic Injury Prevention. Those recommendations addressed road safety at the system level and placed top priority on establishing a lead agency to guide the national road safety effort. The guidelines presented in this report reinforce this priority and the related recommendations. The guidelines are designed to support efforts by senior government officials and specialists in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) responsible for country road safety to strengthen system management processes and scale up road safety financing. Review findings enable the identification and prioritized specification of system management strengthening initiatives in LMICs that address shortfalls in road safety performance. The guidelines take a pragmatic approach to meeting this challenge. They recognize that under-resourced management processes at the system level are a major barrier to progress that must be overcome if sustainable performance gains are to be achieved. The guidelines refer to a country management review, as they are designed for applications mainly at the national government level. They can also address all levels of government - national, state, city, and local - separately or in some combination. The guidelines allow for flexibility in their application. Country differences must be identified during the review preparation phase to ensure that review procedures are adapted to them. Review findings will differ, depending on country contexts. Irrespective of the level of country capacity, the review procedures remain the same.