The African Road Safety Policy Framework was elaborated to underpin the Africa Decade Plan of Action for Road Safety. It takes into account the findings of The Second African Road Safety Conference, held November 9-11, 2011 in Addis-Ababa with the participation of Member States Delegates and Civil Society Stakeholders. It received substantial input in particular from the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), the Sub-Saharan Africa Transport Policy Program (SSATP), the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the World Bank, as well as many African technical experts and decision makers before and during the Conference. as well as many African technical experts and decision makers before and during the Conference. The African Road Safety Plan of Action which was approved at the Conference and endorsed by the African Union Second Ordinary Session of the Ministers in charge of Transport held in Luanda November 21-25, 2011 is reproduced in Annex 4 of the Policy Framework. Every activity present in the Plan of Action is included in the Policy Framework, two substantial additional policy items. The resource mobilization strategy which was not discussed in depth during the Conference: the Policy Framework underpins the need to mainstream the road safety activities and financing within the relevant diverse institutions, and to identify and design sustainable financing as part of the definition of activities — instead of considering financing as an additional dimension to be resolved after all other aspects have been concluded. The second addition concerns a Road Safety technical capacity needed at continental level to lead, monitor and evaluate the roll out of the Plan of Action, and to serve as a cheer leader. Although confirmed in principle, this capacity was presented during the Conference as a set of opened institutional options varying from establishing a continental Lead Agency, to assigning this role to one of Africa’s regional organizations, to distributing responsibilities for selected pillars among a Technical/Steering Committee. During the conference, it was proposed that in Africa, certain technical outfits, recognized for their good practice, could be mandated to assume a continent wide coordinating role for one or more pillar of the Plan of Action. Another option is to define TORs for a specialist team to assume this role from within an appropriate department in AfDB, a global specialized outfit, or SSATP. A number of Annexes complete the Policy Framework: they include a copy of the original decisions which have presided over the launch, in Africa, of Decade of Action for Road Safety. They also include summary examples that illustrate key features of the Policy Framework. As much as possible, these examples have sought to draw on the rich and diverse Africa Member States experiences. As the Policy Framework becomes a live web-based document, these annexes will become links to Member States, private sector and community based road safety sites in Africa, or will report on innovations and new developments in road safety progress. (Author/publisher)
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