I. Background and Justification

Road traffic injuries are a major but neglected public health challenge that requires concerted efforts for effective and sustainable prevention. Statistics reveal that every year more than 1.2 million people die in road crashes around the world. Sixty-five percent of deaths involve pedestrians and 35 percent of pedestrian deaths are children. Over 30-50 million are injured and often disabled each year. This level of road trauma imposes huge economic costs, representing between 1 and 3 percent of GDP in most countries. The majority of these deaths- about 70 percent- occur in developing countries. Road traffic injuries are a multidimensional problem and require a comprehensive view when examining the determinants consequences and solutions.

For Africa, traffic injury is an escalating burden causing a vast amount of social and economic loss in terms of injuries, emotional harm, fatalities, loss of income and property damages. Significant progress in road safety and crash reduction can be achieved through a comprehensive road safety information system. A common factor of central importance in road safety management is the lack of accurate and comprehensive data related to road traffic crashes which is a pre-requisite for accurate diagnosis of the road safety problems. It assists in the development of remedial measures as well as to evaluate the effectiveness of the road safety programs. Various groups and organizations use crash and related injury and death t data for a number of purposes, however, for it to be effective for planning and evaluation of road safety action across the region, it is important that national and sub-national data management is carried out in a systematic and uniform manner using standardized tools.

The monitoring of trends in road traffic crashes is a unique tool to assess the effectiveness of new prevention polices. It also allows for a useful account of the characteristics of traffic insecurity, helping the prioritization of effective interventions (identification of hot spots, vulnerable road users, regional variations, and so on). Issuing persuasive figures through regular national or regional reports will help raising public awareness as well as advocating for the allocation of appropriate resources. However, the paucity of injuries and casualties data from African countries leads to uncertainties, and probably to major under-estimation of the size of the problem. Implementing an effective and sustainable information system related to road traffic crashes should be among the first priorities actions to be implemented. To this effect, some countries are making tremendous efforts; these needs to be known and encouraged and success stories should be replicated.

The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) has been a pioneer in road safety activities in Africa. In view of this effort, ECA in collaboration with its partners, organized the Second African Road Safety Conference which was held from 09th -11th of November 2011 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia with calls to reduce Africa’s road carnage statistics by 50% by the year 2020 through implementation of an African Decade Plan of Action from 2011-2020 for Road Safety, which was later endorsed by the 18th AU Summit in January 2012. Participants at the Conference hinted that the absence of reliable and quality data could be one of the reasons for the lack of adequate responses on better road safety measures in Africa and made a number of recommendations aimed at building the capacity of African States on road crash data management.

Despite recent progress towards understanding the broad patterns, the precise magnitude of injury-related mortality and disability is not known. The existing data with the police, hospitals, insurance, and legal sectors is not harmonized and needs major revamping. Thus, the first step towards achieving the Decade Plan of Action is to provide better and more reliable and sustained data of crashes, the factors responsible for the different types and the magnitude of disability. This data could then be used to inform policy-makers about the scope and the severity of the problem and, in turn, to argue for greater attention, allocation of more resources and for prevention efforts. It is with this objective that this workshop will be convened. It will allow bringing together multiple stakeholders to discuss various issues regarding management and use of road traffic injuries data.

Pursuant to the AU Assembly decisions workshop participants will arrive one day before to attend the launch of the first African Road Safety Day which is also the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims, to be jointly celebrated with the African Union Commission and other key road safety stakeholders. The respected ceremony will be held in several African cities to raise awareness on the road safety issues among stakeholders and encourage community involvement for the traffic related injury and death prevention activities.

The Day will become an important tool in Africa’s efforts to reduce road casualties. It will offer an opportunity for drawing attention to the scale of emotional and economic devastation caused by road crashes and for giving recognition to the suffering of road crash victims and the work of support and rescue services. In this regard representative of key road safety players will be invited to join our efforts in organizing this seminal event (additional information and documentation will be provided for a better preparation).

II. Overall Objectives

The overall objectives for the workshop are:

• To highlight the need to harmonize data attributes, format and standards in road crash reporting within the continent;
• To outline the requirements for a comprehensive national traffic safety data collection, analysis and reporting system;
• To share experiences on data use.

The objectives of the Launch of the First African Road Safety Day are to:

• Raise awareness on road safety issues;
• Initiate the celebration of the African Road Safety Day adopted by the African Union Summit.

III. Expected Audience

The participants to the data system workshop will comprise of representation from three sectors: law enforcement (traffic police), health and transport including road safety experts, road safety statisticians, and information specialists from African countries, RECs, NGOs and research institutions.

The participants to the launch event will include High Officials from Government Offices and Diplomats, policy-makers & practitioners, development partners, UN agencies, European Union Commission, WHO, World Bank, Red Cross, NGOs, African Union Commission, the academia, CSOs, the private sector, eminent policy and opinion leaders and other concerned road safety stakeholders.

IV. Workshop Agenda

The WHO/FIA/GRSP/WB Road Safety Data manual will be used to guide the agenda for the workshop:

(Data System)

In preparation for the training, participants will be asked to complete a pre-training questionnaire on the situation of Traffic Safety Data System in their own countries and to bring it along with examples of data collection tools that are used in the country.

The following topics will be covered during the workshop.

1. Importance of data systems: why data systems are important for road safety
2. Current data system: assessing the status of exiting data system
3. Data system components: core components of a successful traffic safety data system
4. Situational assessment: creating a Situational Assessment Action Plan
5. Strategies for improvement: core components of a successful traffic safety data system& developing an action plan for improvement
6. Improving the data system: applying knowledge to a traffic safety data system case study

V. Expected Outcomes

By the end of the workshop, the participants should be able to:

• Describe traffic safety Data System Components required to build a successful data system.
• Understand how the following contribute to a comprehensive traffic safety data system:

• • data beyond crash data;
  • road safety management; and
  • data from different sectors.
• Describe how a comprehensive traffic safety data system leads to successful evaluation.
• Create a draft Situational Assessment Action Plan.
• Apply knowledge to a traffic safety data systems case study.

VI. Expected Output

By the end of the workshop, each participating country will develop a draft Situational Assessment Action plan, which will need to be completed later when participants return to their country.

VII. Activities

• Develop the technical material that will be discussed during the workshop (WHO Geneva, SSATP, ECA, and AUC to provide materials and facilitate the workshop sessions.);
• Convene the workshop including support for participants to attend the workshop;
• Handing over Certificate of attendance;
• Preparation for the launching ceremony of the first African Road Safety Day.

VIII. Format

To promote discussions and active interactions, the attendance will be limited to about 70. The format of the workshop will include ample time for discussion. Several sessions are foreseen for smaller working groups pairing road safety experts, and researchers.

IX. Date & Venue

The workshop will take place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, at the UNCC starting 19th

– 21th November, 2012.

X. Working Languages

The official languages of the Workshop are English and French.

XI. Workshop Secretariat

Marie Therese Guiebo
Infrastructure and Natural Resources Development Section /RITD United Nation Economic Commission for Africa
Email: mguiebo [at] uneca.orgtarget="_blank"
Tel: +251-11-544 53 52
Fax: +251-11-515 30 05
P.O. Box 3005, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Yonas Bekele
Infrastructure and Natural Resources Development Section /RITD
United Nation Economic Commission for Africa
Email: ybekele [at] uneca.org
Tel: +251-11-544 51 60
Fax: +251-11-515 30 05
P.O. Box 3005, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia