A STUDY OF ROAD SAFETY LEAD AGENCIES IN AFRICA Title A STUDY OF ROAD SAFETY LEAD AGENCIES IN AFRICA Report Authors Winnie Mitullah, Martin Small and Mustapha Azzouzi Project Leaders Tawia Addo-Ashong, World Bank Girma Bezabeh, African Development Bank Meleckidzedeck Khayesi, World Health Organisation Report Version Final Draft Circulated Date 22nd February 2022 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS SSATP is an international partnership to facilitate policy development and related capacity-building in the transport sector in Africa. Sound policies lead to safe, reliable, and cost-effective transport, freeing people to lift themselves out of poverty and helping countries to compete internationally. More publications are found on the SSATP website: www.ssatp.org. SSATP is a partnership of 42 African countries: Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Gabon, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe; 8 Regional Economic Communities (RECs); 2 African institutions: African Union Commission (AUC) and United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA); Financing partners for the Third Development Plan: European Commission (main donor), Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), Agence Française de Développement (AFD), African Development Bank (AfDB), and World Bank (host); Many public and private national and regional organizations. SSATP gratefully acknowledges the contributions and support of member countries and its partners. The study project was led by Tawia Addo-Ashong, Senior Transport Specialist at the World Bank and Road Safety Pillar Lead for SSATP, Girma Bezabeh, Road Safety Specialist at the African Development Bank, and Meleckidzedeck Khayesi at the World Health Organisation who each provided critical support and direction. The following people supported data in-country gathering Elna Van Niekerk, Sidiki Sidibe, Martial M. Missimikim, Dr. Antole Desire Bizongo, Shehab Abuzeid, Racheal Nganwa, Yonas Bekele, Patrick Omari, Juliet Adu, Okwudili Ikejiani, Hammami Sassi, Pedro Chilengue, and Ndapewa Hileni Tjivikua. Finally, the study would not have been possible without the support and contribution of the road safety lead agencies themselves – they have a complex task in a complex environment and it is the study team’s hope that this report can support their future efforts. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the SSATP or its partners. © 2022 International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank. 1818 H Street, NW Washington D.C. 20433 USA Attribution – Please cite the work as follows: Winnie Mitullah, Martin Small, and Mustapha Azzouzi. 2022. A Study of Road Safety Lead Agencies in Africa. Washington, DC: SSATP. STUDY TEAM Winnie Mitullah is a research professor based at the University of Nairobi, Institute for Development Studies (IDS). She has background in political science and public administration specializing on policy, institutions and governance, in particular provision and management of urban services, including decentralization, housing, informality, transport and identity. Mitullah has researched, published, taught, consulted and collaborated with several academic colleagues across countries and continents, governments, private sector, UN and other local and international agencies. Her publications include road safety and non-motorised transport. Martin Small is an international road safety management and leadership consultant, widely experienced in Africa and Asia through work for the Africa Transport Policy Programme, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, other multilateral organisations, and national/local governments. He is President of the Australasian College of Road Safety, a Director of the FIA-aligned mobility club of South Australia (RAA), and has previously held a variety of road safety leadership positions in Australian and New Zealand governments. Mustapha Azzouzi, P.Eng, MSc is a Transport and Road Safety Management Expert and consultant at World Bank Group. He has a successful international experience (in +20 countries) and strong expertise in developing proactive road safety strategies & action plans, institutional strengthening, road safety engineering and capacity building while using the latest scientific approaches to road safety such as the Safe system approach, Proactive strategic approaches and road safety by design, etc. 3 Table of Contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ....................................................................................................... 6 1 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................... 10 2 METHODOLOGY ...................................................................................................... 14 2.1 Phase 1: Research instrument preparation & agency selection ........................... 14 2.2 Phase 2: Data collection and analysis .................................................................. 16 2.3 Lessons ................................................................................................................ 17 3 THE LEAD AGENCY IN AFRICA ........................................................................... 18 3.1 Institutional form ................................................................................................. 18 3.2 Institutional function ........................................................................................... 19 3.3 Institutional performance..................................................................................... 20 3.4 Lead agencies elsewhere ..................................................................................... 21 4 LEAD AGENCY PERFORMANCE IN AFRICA ..................................................... 23 4.1 Institutions ........................................................................................................... 23 4.2 Results Focus ....................................................................................................... 26 4.3 Coordination and promotion................................................................................ 31 4.4 Monitoring and evaluation .................................................................................. 38 4.5 Funding and capacity ........................................................................................... 43 4.6 Performance ......................................................................................................... 48 5 LESSONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ................................................................ 54 Lesson 1: Institutional mandate ....................................................................................... 54 Lesson 2: Results focus ................................................................................................... 55 Lesson 3: Coordination.................................................................................................... 57 Lesson 4: Funding ........................................................................................................... 58 Lesson 5: Monitoring and evaluation .............................................................................. 58 Lesson 6: Capacity building ............................................................................................ 59 References ............................................................................................................................... 61 Appendix 1: RSLA Questionnaire........................................................................................... 62 Appendix 2: Stakeholder Focus Group Checklist ................................................................... 70 Appendix 3: Legal Mandates for Road Safety Lead Agencies ............................................... 73 4 Table 1: Countries included in the study ....................................................................................... 14 Table 2: Existence and nature of national strategies and plans ..................................................... 28 Table 3: Ratio of WHO estimated fatalities to reported fatalities (2010-16) ................................ 40 Table 4: Amount allocated to RSLA (USD) ................................................................................. 45 Figure 1: Road safety outcome connections across sectors........................................................... 11 Figure 2: WHO estimated fatalities per 100,000 population (2016) ............................................. 15 Figure 3: WHO estimated fatalities per 100,000 population (2010-16) ........................................ 20 Figure 4: Establishment year and operational year ....................................................................... 24 Figure 5: Legal establishment and existence of a guiding document ............................................ 25 Figure 6: Main activities of RSLA work groups ........................................................................... 25 Figure 7: Existence of a national road safety strategy or action plan ............................................ 26 Figure 8: Alignment of national strategies .................................................................................... 27 Figure 9: Final safety outcomes .................................................................................................... 28 Figure 10: Periodic legislation reviews ......................................................................................... 30 Figure 11: Existence and legal status of national inter-agency bodies .......................................... 32 Figure 12: RSLA rating of inter-agency bodies ............................................................................ 33 Figure 13: Coordination mandate, and status ................................................................................ 33 Figure 14: RSLA rating of effectiveness of their coordination with stakeholders ........................ 34 Figure 15: Type of data gathered and shared across agencies ....................................................... 39 Figure 16: Accuracy, production of reports, and deaths within 30 days ....................................... 39 Figure 17: Conduct and Funding of Evaluations ........................................................................... 41 Figure 18: Main revenue and funding sources for RSLA budget ................................................. 44 Figure 19: Main road safety funders ............................................................................................. 44 Figure 20: Satisfaction of funding and proportion of required resources...................................... 46 Figure 21: Total RSLA technical staff .......................................................................................... 46 Figure 22: RSLA funding priorities (average, 1 lowest to 10 highest) ......................................... 48 Figure 23: RSLA rating of factors affecting performance ............................................................ 49 Figure 24: RSLA rating of their own performance ....................................................................... 49 5 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Road traffic fatalities and injuries are a global concern acknowledged in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and an African concern acknowledged in the African Road Safety Charter, and various country policies and laws. Road safety lead agencies (RSLAs) are responsible for leading national efforts to achieve the national road safety goals, bringing all arms of government and society together to improve safety outcomes. Despite the presence of these agencies in most countries, road safety performance remains a concern – management systems are inadequate and interventions are weak – justifying this examination of the performance of RSLAs in sixteen anglophone and francophone countries of Africa, using quantitative and qualitative methods. The study was commissioned by the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the World Bank, as part of a global study on RSLAs by the World Health Organization (WHO). RSLAs in Africa operate in different legal and institutional contexts which is reflected in the differentiated performance of various functions that are analysed in this study. The analysis reveals that the agencies’ performance are undermined by regulatory weaknesses and resource scarcity. The sub sections below provide summary findings of each function. Institutions The RSLAs operate under different institutional forms: seven agencies identified as government departments, five of them as autonomous agencies, and the remainder as councils with a professional secretariat. Several have strong legal mandates backed by Acts of Parliament and hold major delivery responsibilities, and the level of mandate improves with establishment of autonomous agencies, but there is a widespread need to strengthen legal mandates for road safety. Ten agencies had road safety policy documents to guide them, but none of the councils had such a document, revealing a weakness in the council form. All but one of the RSLAs were established by a specific law referencing their road safety responsibility. Three quarters of countries have inter- agency bodies, a few of which have multiple bodies that extend to local government and into technical bodies. While the literature and practitioners are concerned about which institutional form of organization is appropriate, this study does not allow conclusion on the preferred form of a RSLA. Each country’s government system has evolved in its own way, at different times and in response to different factors, and it is more important to consider current institutional settings for road safety in a country, and to assess how those settings can be improved, than to define the best form. Results focus RSLAs are responsible for leading national efforts to achieve the national road safety goals. National road safety strategies and plans provide mechanisms for national, regional and local stakeholders to agree on a roadmap for action to reduce fatal and serious injuries, and to determine what will be done by whom and how. The study findings show that country strategies are aligned with global and continental frameworks but the delivery of road safety activities in line with safety goals and targets are unsatisfactory. There is a mismatch between the theoretical ambition and road safety activities set at national level and the actual implementation of road safety activities. Most countries only include deaths and serious injuries in the final safety outcomes. Other final safety outcomes like hospitalization and economic cost of crashes which are embedded in global guidelines are hardly included. Furthermore, not all stakeholders (particularly those outside government) use national strategies to achieve road safety objectives and goals. These challenges 6 are further complicated by a lack of stable and sufficient funding. Sustained investment is required in monitoring and evaluation to track progress at national level, short of which progress to achieve fatality and serious targets will continue to be compromised. Many opportunities exist in ensuring safer roads/vehicles/users and improved post-crash response, and strategies and plans need to be continually reviewed and aligned with international guidance and good practice. Coordination and promotion The RSLA is responsible for bringing on board stakeholders from inside and outside government, coordinating and aligning road safety interventions and management functions to support achievement of national targets. This requires leveraging different strengths and capacities of stakeholders for successful implementation of strategies and plans. The study reveals both national inter-agency bodies that can support this, but also overlapping responsibilities between government agencies without clear coordination mechanism. Outside government, there is little coordination and most stakeholders feel disconnected from the national road safety efforts. In isolated cases where coordination exists, it is usually based on individual initiatives as opposed to any institutionalised mechanism. Stakeholders attribute coordination weaknesses to several factors: any input is at an advisory level only with agencies who do not hold themselves to commitments, and there is a lack of data to inform decisions, a lack of technical expertise to develop programs, and a lack of funding to implement programs. The private sector and community service organisations need to become part of the national road safety effort which will require strengthening coordination arrangements, including establishment of working groups. The coordination issues are directly affecting the road safety promotion function which should be done at both strategic and programmatic levels. RSLAs should be promoting road safety knowledge – including policies, laws, regulations, strategic plans and targets – amongst all stakeholder and coordinating promotional activities geared towards achieving road safety goals. The findings show that most stakeholders plan their activities individually with hardly any consultation, at most inviting others to participate in their activities. A coordinated approach has the potential to deliver high priority promotional activities which focus on building support for implementation across the country of major safety reforms. Monitoring and evaluation Road safety data (i) unearths the extent of the problems, (ii) informs development of road safety policies, (iii) assists in monitoring trends, (iv) assists in identifying high risk road user groups, location and risk factors influencing road traffic injury, and (v) provides knowledge for road safety programmes, and overall evaluation of road safety performance. The study reveals that few RSLAs are directly in charge of data, but reinforces their responsibility to ensure that the systems are in place to effectively monitor and evaluate road safety progress. The monitoring and evaluation function is weak in most countries: case study countries mainly collect data on fatalities and injuries, but underlying data related to intermediate indicators and risk factors such as speeding, drink driving, motorcycle helmet use and infrastructure safety are largely not collected. Furthermore, most countries do not have centralised crash data, and RSLAs and stakeholders do not consider death and injury reporting accurate. Countries need to strengthen the RSLA’s capacity to effectively coordinate and manage road safety data systems, and develop a reliable monitoring and evaluation system to promote safety performance indicators. While privacy controls are essential, all government stakeholders need to share data, and performance data should be regularly published. 7 Funding and capacity Funding and human resources present critical challenges that undermine the performance of RSLAs. A critical role for lead agencies is to lead analysis and discussion to determine what significant additional safety investments are required, how they will be funded, and how they will be managed. The study shows that RSLAs are performing below average, with limited funds and human resources which undermine their ability to effectively fulfil their mandated functions. Funding is largely provided by national treasuries and respective ministries, with multi-lateral banks and foreign donors complementing government efforts. Nine of the study countries had road funds in addition to other funding sources, but only one country had sufficient budget for 2020/2021. The lack of funding is impacting on human resource manifested in the shortfall between the number of positions established by RSLA and the number of people actually employed. Countries need to pursue more sustainable funding sources and greater priority for safety investments which are needed to reduce the funding and human resource gap. In particular (and with regard to both RSLA institutional and wider sectoral needs), countries should identify the economic cost of road traffic crashes, the financial and human resources required, the potential funding sources, and develop investment business cases. This will strengthen RSLA and partner delivery of more and better interventions. Performance Measuring performance is essential, but it is not easy to measure performance of RSLAs. At a country level, overall performance must be measured in terms of deaths and serious injuries, but several factors directly affect performance that go beyond the powers, functions and resources of RSLAs. Road safety performance at a national level is a shared outcome across at least transport, justice and health sectors. In this study RSLAs’ self-assessment identified funding as the most problematic constraint to their performance during their self-assessment, followed by ineffective enforcement of regulations, system constraints, lack of data, and lack of up to date legislation. Legal constraint was identified as the least problematic challenge, although it still rated 2.7 out of 5 in a Likert scale, but the study revealed significant gaps in this area. Lessons and recommendations Six lessons were drawn from this study, and recommendations made, focusing on countries. It is also recommended that development partners undertake a follow up study in the middle of the Second Decade of Action on Road Safety, and initiate the preparation of a guidance manual for road safety lead agencies. Lesson 1, Institutional Mandate: The safety mandate is important to establish at an early point, and needs to be renewed. It must be continually nourished and never forgotten. It is recommended that countries review and if necessary, enhance the legislative mandate of the lead agency, the wider inter-agency governance systems for road safety, and the engagement with stakeholders outside government, in pursuit of national road safety goals. Lesson 2, Results Focus: Strategy development and implementation processes are a critical means of a lead agency bringing something to the table, establishing their credibility and delivering improved safety. It is recommended that countries review alignment with good practice road safety strategies and plans and ensure that core interventions (the safety quality of the road, of vehicles, of users and of post-crash response) are appropriately applied to the local context 8 – special consideration is required of the political and cultural context in each country, the economic and commercial factors at play, the importance of compliance with safety standards, and appropriate licensing arrangements for informal/public transport Lesson 3, Coordination: Establishing and maintaining stakeholder engagement processes is time consuming and difficult, but essential to the long-term value which the RSLA can deliver. It is recommended that countries stengthen road safety governance arrangements to ensure that non-state actors in academic, business and community sectors are engaged in developing and implementing road safety strategy and can better align their own safety interests and activities to the directions being pursued at a national level. Lesson 4 Funding: Sustainable funding sources for the RSLA and for the safety programs being delivered by other MDAs need to be considered as a critical governance and institutional issue. It is recommended that countries pursue more sustainable funding sources and greater priority for safety investments, which are needed to reduce the significant funding gap reported by almost all RSLAs, and for the wider sector (in road infrastructure, vehicle regulation, post-crash services etc.) to meet the national road safety targets which have been set. Lesson 5, Monitoring and Evaluation: Direct involvement in road safety data management is important for RSLAs to deliver their wider leadership role. It is recommended that countries strengthen RSLA capacity to effectively collect and manage road safety data, and develop a reliable evaluation and monitoring system to promote safety performance indicators – while privacy controls are essential, all government stakeholders need to share data, and performance data needs to be regularly published. Lesson 6, Capacity Building: Capacity building is a critical and ongoing consideration as the RSLA is established, grows and leads the national road safety effort. It is recommended that countries look for opportunities to systematically strengthen capacity building in local and national safety expertise, focusing on the quality of human resources and their technical expertise, and on the capacity of the national road safety management system rather than the numbers of staff. 9 1 INTRODUCTION This study of road safety lead agencies (RSLAs) in Africa takes place at an important time when serious injuries on roads are at the centre of discussions on sustainable development. RSLAs in Africa are considered to be critical vehicles for responding to road safety challenges, although how well they do this remains largely unknown. In literature, their functionality, complexity and autonomy has widely been assessed (AfDB, 2013, Small & Runji, 2014, WHO, 2018 & Cardoso, 2018). However, there is limited attempt to link the management capacity of RSLAs to the observed road safety outcomes such as serious injuries and fatality reduction or reduction in the cost of road traffic crashes. Consequently, there is limited evidence as to whether or not lead agencies in Africa are achieving the intended goals of improving road safety status (Bajia, et al 2021). Growing global recognition of the need to release the handbrake of road traffic injury on sustainable development has led to several global responses: • The inclusion of road safety as a target in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals • The promulgation of a Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021-2030 • The release of a Global Plan to support the implementation of the second decade of action • The establishment of voluntary road safety performance targets to support 2030 target of a 50% reduction in fatalities • The establishment of a UN Road Safety Fund to catalyze investment and finance high- impact, scalable projects. At a continental level, it is important that African countries draw on this unprecedented level of global attention, and reinforce the importance of this across the continent. The adoption of the African Road Safety Charter and the establishment of the African Road Safety Observatory under the leadership of the African Union will be important in this. Nationally, the strengthening of institutional responses to the road safety crisis by African governments will be even more important. The above global, regional and local concerns justify the overall research objective of this study, to assess the organizational performance of RSLAs in Africa. This aims to generate knowledge on the strengths and weaknesses of road safety institutions, and identify directions towards improved performance. Governments play a critical and defining role in the road traffic system and the safety of that system. They raise revenue, allocate resources for safety programs, set the safety standards for roads, vehicles and users, enforce compliance with those standards, and have emergency medical systems in place for road crash victims. They rely on contributions from many different societal actors, but the quality of those actors’ response reflects the quality of government leadership. Governments have the means at their disposal to reduce serious road trauma, but it can be difficult to continually achieve this. There are a lot of variables to manage within the road traffic system, which is impacted upon by various legal, financial, and commercial imperatives. The road traffic system is also expected to support much bigger social, environmental and economic goals within society. Three major government sectors for example – Health, Transport, and Police – all focus on higher level outcomes, as illustrated in Figure 1, but hold significant road safety responsibilities. 10 Figure 1: Road safety outcome connections across sectors Given the highly dispersed nature of the road traffic system, and the many different accountabilities for safety, considerable effort and attention is required to ensure a systemic, multi- sectoral and successful response to the societal goal of eliminating road traffic injury. Two institutional primary responses are required by Government. The first one is to put in place inter-agency governance systems to manage the various responsibilities and accountabilities of ministers, and their respective ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs). Effective inter- agency governance systems help governments to make better policy and investment decisions in pursuit of societal goals. They also help governments to hold MDAs to account for delivering the services they are specifically responsible for, and coordinating delivery with other relevant MDAs, in pursuit of those goals. Another institutional response is to nominate a lead agency within central government to lead the road safety effort. This was an original recommendation from the World Health Organisation’s 2004 World Report on Road Traffic Injury (Peden et al 2004). The road safety lead agency (RSLA) can support the inter-agency governance system, bring together a single line of road safety advice to Ministers, and coordinate and follow up implementation of the decisions which have been made. A professional work group to perform this function can be housed within an existing agency, or an autonomous agency can be established. The RSLA function is a complex function within a complex system, and the focus of this study is the performance of this function in Africa. African countries have established management systems for road safety as a way of implementing the recommendations of the World Report, the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety, and the Africa Road Safety Action Plan (Peden et al., 2004; UNECA, 2011; WHO, 2013). The importance of the role of RSLAs was reinforced by Articles 4 and 5 of the African Road Safety Charter:1 Article 4: Creation of Road Safety Lead Agencies 1. State Parties shall establish legally mandated national road safety lead agencies with cross- sectorial coordination responsibilities within three years after ratification or accession to this Charter. 2. The responsibilities of the lead agencies shall among others include: 1 https://au.int/en/treaties/road-safety-charter retrieved September 2020. 11 a) Policy advice to Government on matters of road safety across sectors b) Formulation and coordination of the implementation of road safety strategies. Article 5: Institutional Strengthening of Road Safety Lead Agencies States Parties shall provide institutional support to lead agencies through financial and human resources, political support and recognition to give them the requisite clout to perform their coordination functions. The Charter was adopted by the African Union on 30 January 2016. It has been signed by 12 of the 55 Member Countries (Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Togo, Zambia), and ratified by two – Mali and Namibia. All but three of the 50 African countries that participated in the most recent World Health Organisation survey published in 2018 reported having a road safety lead agency. However, the existence of a lead agency does not mean that it has the required legal authority or financial or human resources needed to execute its intended mandate. As well, there may or may not be an inter-agency governing body or wider stakeholder body through which key interests are brought together to provide advice and direction for government. Without these outward focused engagement systems, the lead agency is likely to find it more difficult to succeed in what is already a complex environment. These governance, mandate and resourcing challenges are not unique to Africa, or indeed low and middle-income countries, but the African context is more challenging. For example, it has been argued that colonial rule in Africa left a legacy of much stronger informal institutions on the continent which has impacted on the ability of formal government institutions to effect change (Bajia, et al 2021). Against this background, African road safety lead agencies face further and more specific challenges, such as: • Income imperatives: Poverty issues loom much larger with many people forced to take an unreasonably high risk on the road to earn income through for example hawking in motorised traffic, or non-motorised carriage of goods that spill into traffic • Regulatory weaknesses: Safety reform is more difficult in Africa where highly competitive and informal or poorly regulated public transport industries play a dominant role in personal mobility • Resource scarcity: Safety investment is often not tangible and obvious which means that very low national budgets in Africa make competition for safety investment even greater, reducing the potential effectiveness of lead agencies. RSLAs in high income countries can find it difficult to effectively work across sectors and organizational boundaries and even the best organized look to renew and refresh their approach. RSLAs in African countries face even more difficulties, but are even more crucial to success in responding to the road safety crisis sweeping the continent. This study sought to better understand these difficulties and the potential steps to success for RSLAs in Africa. It was commissioned by the African Development Bank and the World Bank and focuses on sixteen African countries. It is part of a global study of road safety lead agencies being undertaken by the World Health Organisation. 12 The study is structured into four sections. Section 2 describes the two-phase methodology – desk study and preparation of the research instruments, data collection and analysis. This is followed in Section 3 by a discussion of the concept of lead agency, which lays the ground for presentation of the study results regarding lead agency performance in Section 4. Section 4 ends by responding to the following research questions that informed the study: 1. What are the organisational and performance characteristics of effective lead agencies? 2. How do these characteristics manifest themselves in lead agencies in low- and middle- income (African) countries? 3. Under what circumstances is one model of organization more appropriate than the other? 4. To what extent does the mechanism by which they are set up and their capacity address their effectiveness for leading and coordinating road safety stakeholders and deliver their mandate of achieving national and SDG road safety targets? 5. How do these agencies work out the “good practice” with respect to governance, funding and responsibilities to deliver their mandate? 6. What strategic appropriate reform measures should be adopted to improve the effectiveness of lead agencies in low-and middle-income countries? Section 5 identifies lessons from the study and makes recommendations to improve lead agency performance. 13 2 METHODOLOGY The study was divided into two distinct phases. The first phase was designed to establish the context of RSLAs in Africa, identify knowledge gaps, and to inform the second phase of the study including the selection of the sixteen case study countries, and development of research tools. 2.1 Phase 1: Research instrument preparation & agency selection This phase began with the development of analytical framework for desk study. This was followed by review of literature, and report writing. Published literature was reviewed including that produced by governments and multilateral institutions. The review focused on the political context and age of RSLAs, policy and legal and institutional frameworks, organisational and human capacity, coordination, and performance indicators. The resulting report2 provided a knowledge base for the study and was used to inform the selection of the agencies for analysis. Countries were included in the study based on the following factors: • The geographic spread of countries and the official non-local language used • The wealth of each country • The population and road safety performance (WHO 2016 estimates). Table 1: Countries included in the study Country Region Language Country Income Population (M) Cameroon Central French/English Lower Middle 27 Chad Central French Low 14 Cote d’Ivoire West French Lower Middle 26 DR Congo Central French Low 90 Egypt North French/Arabic Lower Middle 102 Ethiopia East English Low 115 Ghana West English Lower Middle 31 Kenya East English Lower Middle 54 Mali West French Low 20 Morocco North French/Arabic Lower Middle 37 Mozambique South Portuguese Low 31 Namibia South English Upper Middle 3 Nigeria West English Middle 186 South Africa South English Upper Middle 59 Tunisia North French/Arabic Lower Middle 12 Uganda East English Low 46 2 KN Bajia, WV Mitullah, MW Small, M Azzouzi (2021). Literature review on road safety lead agencies in Africa. Internal Report. 14 This provided a good mix of the agencies across the continent, including French and English speaking countries with their unique attributes (Table 1 and Figure 2). Income status was considered vital since literature revealed that many agencies have limited resources, in particular finance and human resource. Literature attributed this to weak institutions and lack of political support which are assessed in this study. Figure : Figure 2:WHO WHOEstimated Fatalities estimated fatalities per per 100,000 100,000 Population population (2016) (2016) 33.7 9.7 Powered by Bing © GeoNames, Microsoft, TomTom, Wikipedia A questionnaire was developed and circulated to each RSLA (Appendix 1). It was informed by the terms of reference, and the literature review, and included questions relevant for a comprehensive understanding of RSLA operations in each country – namely: institutional Table : Ratio of information, WHO legal estimatedorganization, framework, fatalities to reported fatalities national (2010-16) inter-agency body, coordination, national strategy and planning, legislation, data, monitoring and evaluation, funding, human resources and 2010 2013 2016 Change performance. Cameroon 2.9 5.8 3.8 0.9 Although some of the questions covered other MDAs, such as Highways or Police, these were Chad 1 2 3.6 2.5 limited to matters which were considered relevant for the RSLA in relationship to those MDAs. Cote d’Ivoire Some information was needed from 5.8 the questionnaire 5.9 other agencies, but -0.3 5.6was designed for the RSLA 41.4 other MDAs where to respond directly, and consult DR Congo 45 needed. 68.9 27.5 Egypt In 1.1 addition to the questionnaire, a checklist 1.2 of issues (Appendix 1.1 2) was developed 0 for focus group discussions Ethiopia (FGDs), to assist in gathering 5.8 7.1 of stakeholders collective voices 6.3on road safety issues. 0.5 The issues Ghana covered included: familiarity 2.7 with road safety 3 issues, national road 3.9 safety strategy and 1.2 targets, engagement with road safety agencies, stakeholder engagement with RSLA, coordination Kenya 2.9 4 4.5 1.6 Mali 4.8 7.4 7.7 2.9 15 Morocco 1.5 1.8 1.8 -0.3 Mozambique 1.7 4.7 6.3 4.6 Namibia 2 1.4 1 -1 Nigeria 10.1 5.5 7.9 -2.2 of road safety actors by RSLA, road safety information data gathering and sharing, road safety funding and technical support and overall assessment of RSLA performance. It was intended to administer the questionnaire before the FGDs, but this did not happen due to delays by most RSLAs in responding to the questionnaire. 2.2 Phase 2: Data collection and analysis Primary data gathering for this study was complex, and included the recruitment of Research Assistants (RAs) in each country (two RAs covered two countries each – Morocco and Tunisia by one, and Chad and Côte d’Ivoire by the other). Each RA was responsible for identifying key stakeholders for FGDs, conducting FGDs, writing a report and following up on the questionnaires being completed by the RSLAs. In preparation for RAs’ data gathering work, the following materials were prepared, and training for RAs conducted online: • The tasks for completion by the RA • A briefing note on RSLAs, providing conceptual understanding of their role • Field work instructions outlining how to constitute and run an FGD • Drafts of an invitation letter and a briefing note for FGD participants. These materials were shared before training and were aimed at equipping the RAs with knowledge of the subject matter and expectations of the assignment. The training helped ensure that all the RAs had common understanding of the data being gathered, in particular clarity and meaning of various questions in the questionnaire and issues for FGD discussion. Field work relied on a co-production approach. The three consultants were responsible for overseeing data collection in respective countries working closely with the RSLAs and the country RAs. The country RAs conducted FGDs and oversaw administration of the RSLA questionnaire. In some cases where FGDs were online, the researchers joined the country teams. World Bank and African Development Bank staff provided ongoing monitoring through meetings, oversight, support and inputs, while WHO provided inputs to research and writing process. 2.2.1 Focus Group Discussions FGDs were conducted across the 16 sampled countries. The FGD participants were drawn from the following road safety stakeholder groups: a) Development partners such as: WHO, AfDB, WB, EU, UNEP and UNHABITAT b) Civil society organisations working on road safety c) Private sector alliances, chambers of commerce and public transport companies d) Scholars from higher learning institutions and think tanks engage on road safety e) Road safety partner agencies such as highways, police, health and local government. A minimum of two participants from each category was sought with participants in each country FGD ranging from 8 to 15. Due to different COVID-19 impacts across all countries, the FGDs were delivered in a hybrid mix – either/or/both online and physical. 2.2.2 Semi-structured questionnaire A semi-structured questionnaire was administered to each of the RSLAs. The RSLAs in respective countries coordinated with other government agencies as required to respond to corresponding sections of the questionnaire, supported by RAs. Once completed, questionnaires were relayed to 16 the researchers for review and identification of gaps, if any. Most of the questionnaires had gaps either because data was lacking, not easily accessible or too difficult to put together within the period of the research. Notwithstanding gaps in some countries, information generated from the questionnaires complemented with FGDs and materials drawn from desk study was sufficient for assessing performance of RSLAs and writing the report. 2.2.3 Data analysis Analysis of the questionnaires was done centrally by the researchers using appropriate software. Three essential steps took place during the data analysis process: (i) the data validation and organization; (ii) editing and categorization and (iii) data analysis as illustrated below: Data analysis was done after validation and editing of data. This was followed by a deeper analysis Phase I: Data Phase II: Data Phase III: Data Validation Editing Coding involving converting data in several ways, including plotting data on a graph, examining the correlations, and creating pivot tables. Descriptive statistics helped describe the data and inferential statistics helped compare data. Thematic content analysis was used to analyse data from FGDs. This required keen reading of interview notes generated from each of the FGDs and isolating key variables of analysis in line with the research issues. Once all the sixteen FGD reports were ready a summarised consolidated FGD report was written by the research team to constitute a consolidated FGD research output. 2.3 Lessons The research was interesting and informative but very challenging, largely due to the difference of protocols in undertaking studies in different countries. Our assumption that working directly with RSLAs would fast-track the research process did not work in some countries. This resulted in more time being dedicated to fieldwork with consequences of delay and request for extension of contract of the consultants. A second lesson is the dearth of comprehensive data in some countries. While it is not possible to make conclusions on this matter, some countries seem to have data but the data is not stored in a system that can easily be accessed. Some of the information required needed more than one government agency, which took longer than expected. Last, but not least, relying on RSLAs for information on their performance has limitations in respect to methodology. Contrary to what was initially envisaged of complementing information from RSLAs with key informant interviews in each country, this did not take place due to limitation of resources. 17 3 THE LEAD AGENCY IN AFRICA This section considers the concept of the road safety lead agency in Africa in terms of institutional form, function and performance, as well as looking more broadly at lead agencies in other low and middle income countries. 3.1 Institutional form Road safety lead agencies in Africa are generally but not exclusively part of a government’s transport portfolio, or related public works or infrastructure portfolios. At the apex sits a Ministry which typically comprises different departments or directorates. Whether they are small policy agencies, or large operational agencies, they provide the closest and most direct association with the responsible Government Minister. An advantage for road safety from a Ministry being the nominated road safety lead agency is that a responsible Minister who gives clear priority to road safety can achieve a lot. A disadvantage for road safety is that the issue can get lost in a myriad of ad hoc committees or fluid organizational accountabilities that are geared to responding to particular government priorities of the day. This dichotomy applies broadly across public sector management. Many African governments have established separate transport agencies with powers vested in boards appointed by Ministers to oversee a legally defined institutional mandate. These agencies may be vested with significant independent investigation or regulatory powers, working in association within the framework of international maritime or aviation conventions. Good examples of this in Africa are maritime agencies overseeing port state control of international shipping, and air accident investigation agencies. Within road transport, the “Road Management Initiative” led by Sub Saharan Africa Transport Policy Program (SSATP) promoted major institutional reform during the 1990s, and saw the establishment of separate road authorities in many African countries.3 The intention of these operational agencies was to improve accountability and delivery associated with developing and maintaining national road networks, through the application of commercial disciplines. A related reform saw the establishment of national road funds. These funding agencies receive dedicated revenues (from government budgets, fuel levies, fees and charges etc) and allocate funding to the maintenance of those networks. Some dedicate a funding allocation to road safety activity. National road authorities and road funds provide an important reference point for road safety lead agencies, with their well-established governance, legal mandates, and sustainable funding mechanisms. Over time, these road agencies have become increasingly influential in the quality of the road traffic system and have established processes and priorities which outlast any one Minister or organizational leader. A third common example of institutional responses to road safety issues in Africa is the establishment of coordinating bodies or councils. Some of these entities have been well established, have a professional secretariat, and represented an essential step forward by governments to tackle road traffic injury. Some are better considered to be an inter-agency body, 3 See MI Pinard (2012). Progress on Commercialized Road Management. Working Paper 92, Africa Transport Policy Program, and S Brushett (2005). Management and financing of road transport infrastructure in Africa. Africa Transport Policy Program. 18 rather than an agency which is itself mandated and resourced to lead the national road safety effort, and so are best seen as a stepping stone towards a more sustainable institutional response. These three lead agency types – government department, autonomous agency, coordinating body – have been identified previously as having a particular relevance in Africa4, and provide the institutional basis from which this study was undertaken. There are variants in these agency types, and different capacities and capabilities, which reflects the national and governmental context in which they were established or currently exist. To begin consideration of performance, it is necessary to look at the core functions of a road safety lead agency. 3.2 Institutional function The road safety problem is not confined to Africa or to low and middle-income countries, and many high-income countries struggle with institutional responses to the problem. For a whole variety of cultural, national and governmental reasons, lead agencies may or may not perform all the institutional road safety management functions which are considered relevant to the potential success of a lead agency.5 These functions are broadly described below:6 • Results Focus: Specify an agreed and cohesive direction regarding the overall safety ambition (vision, goals, targets), the actions required to achieve this ambition, and a performance management framework which links delivery of interventions and achievement of intermediate and final outcomes (this is the foremost function) • Coordination: Develop and coordinate implementation of the government’s national road safety strategies and plans through MDAs who form part of an overall governance system which also involves ongoing engagement with stakeholders • Legislation: Regularly review, develop and maintain a legislative program focusing on the safety standards and compliance requirements which apply to roads, vehicles and road users, as well as road safety management and emergency response systems • Promotion: Promote a systems-based response to road safety issues from government and the wider business and community sectors who are in a position to significantly improve the safety of road users • Funding: Ensure that advice is provided to government (including finance ministries) on resourcing requirements to achieve road safety targets, and the development and management of medium and long-term road safety investment plans • Monitoring and evaluation: Develop and oversee implementation of a monitoring and evaluation framework, including good data management systems and a monitoring program associated with agreed safety performance factors and program deliverables • Research and development, and capacity building: Promote ongoing investment in road safety research and development, projects to demonstrate significant road safety advances that are needed, and road safety capacity building programs across government agencies and within particular professions. 4 M Small & J Runji (2014). Managing road safety in Africa: A framework for national lead agencies. Working Paper 101, Africa Transport Policy Program. 5 KN Bajia, WV Mitullah, MW Small, M Azzouzi (2021). Literature review on road safety lead agencies in Africa. Internal Report. 6 T Bliss, J Breen (2013), Road Safety Management Capacity Reviews and Safe System Projects, Global Road Safety Facility, World Bank, Washington, DC. 19 The performance of the lead agency in these functions can vary from time to time. A challenge for the agency is to have developed policies, processes and procedures that allow the functions to be performed consistently at a high level7. These functions performed through policies, processes and procedures essentially define the quality boundaries for a national road safety management system. Road safety is different to many other public management endeavors in two main ways. Firstly, whereas government agencies are by instinct more comfortable with being held accountable for delivery of outputs, and may describe outcomes in ways which are difficult to measure, there is no hiding from the number of fatal and serious road traffic injuries as a clearly definable outcome measure. Secondly, as noted previously there are a great number of players (within government, let alone society) engaged in activity which directly impacts upon that outcome. This makes it difficult to assess RSLA performance. 3.3 Institutional performance It is possible to compare road safety performance across countries, in public health terms, using WHO’s fatality estimates, as is done in Figure 3 below. Establishing a link between this performance and the performance of each RSLA suggests some precision about the observable differences in lead agency function, structure and resources between, for example, Egypt and the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is difficult to link the performance of the RSLA in each country with this overall performance as the actual volume or rate of road traffic injury depends on a number of factors. Figure 3: WHO estimated fatalities per 100,000 population (2010-16) 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 co e ad i ia sia ia a o ca on t re na ya ia al yp qu nd ng op er ib oi fri Ch oc en ha M o ni Eg bi ga ig am Co er Iv hi A or Tu G K am m N U d’ Et M N h R Ca ut oz te D So Co M 2010 2013 2016 7 Muhlrad, N, Gitelman V, Buttler I. (2011) Road safety management investigation model and questionnaire, Deliverable 1.2 of the EC FP7 project DaCoTA. 20 These factors include: • External factors, over which the organization itself has no direct control, but that constrain the way the organization can operate – an example would be a simple lack of political backing for road safety, or the allocation of budget to other things • Institutional factors, including organizational and managerial arrangements, finance, human resources – an example would be the legal mandate of the lead agency compared with other responsible agencies in government • Technical factors which relate to the agency’s capability to scope, promote and support major change leadership projects – an example would be the road safety knowledge within the agency, or the leadership capability of the executive. A complementary approach has been taken to assess performance across the agencies, including an assessment by the researchers of lead agency performance in relation to the following eight programs and systems, based on the questionnaire and stakeholder focus group discussions: 1. (Results Focus) The existence of a modern national road safety policy, strategy and/or action plan 2. (Coordination) A road safety governance system with an inter-agency body and stakeholder engagement 3. (Promotion) Regular promotion of road safety amongst key stakeholders and decision makers 4. (Legislation) Recent and/or regular reviews of significant legislation and compliance issues 7. (Funding) A defined role in allocating safety resources across government and the community 5. (Monitoring and evaluation) A demonstrable focus on improving the quality of crash data 6. (Monitoring and evaluation) A program of monitoring road safety performance factors and deliverables 7. (Research and development and knowledge transfer) Regular research, development and capacity building projects. This assessment is reported at the end of Section 4. 3.4 Lead agencies elsewhere Finally, it is necessary to consider this in terms of road safety lead agencies in low and middle- income countries outside Africa. A global analysis of road safety lead agencies being undertaken by WHO identified the following main findings from a desktop study and field interviews with 32 RSLAs in low and middle-income countries: • The impact of the presence of RSLA on traffic fatality risk is not evident • There is no single organizational model utilized in these countries, and the contextual factors that determine these organizational models and how these models influence results merits further research • Most RSLAs are involved in coordination, policy planning, public outreach, capacity building and data management systems. Most countries reported success in coordination, public outreach, legislation and data management systems • Most countries also reported obstacles associated with a lack of funding, technical capacity and credible data, and reported advocating for and safeguarding road safety funding as a particular challenge. 21 These findings are relevant for our understanding of RSLAs in Africa, and in high income countries, which are bound by the similarities they share together rather than the contextual differences they must face alone. Examples of two lead agencies are briefly noted below. The Road Traffic Safety Agency in Serbia was established by law in 2009, and became operational 10 months later in September 2010 to establish a road traffic safety system which prevents road crashes and reduces the consequences of road crashes. The Agency consists of five departments: Drivers Department, Vehicles Department, Research Department, Planning and Local Self- Governments Department, and Department of Legal, Financial and General Activities. A Road Traffic Safety Coordination Body became operational 12 months later and its main objective is to achieve cooperation and coordination of road safety, the initiation and monitoring of road safety activities, and prepare a National Road Traffic Safety Strategy and the National Road Traffic Safety Plan. The Body includes various responsible ministers, and has seven expert working groups. The lead agency in India is the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH). A National Road Safety Council (NRSC) was established in 1991, chaired by the national Minister of Roads and Highways with a very wide membership including representatives of States which hold considerable responsibilities for road safety in their own right. There has also been heavy reliance on the oversight of the Supreme Court of India which has been issuing road safety management directions to the states on various issues. Legislation passed in 2019 includes provision for a National Road Safety Management Board, that: • Coordinate and monitor road safety activities in all states • Regulate motor vehicles and drivers • Set standards for traffic management and road safety • Prepare guidelines for road safety capacity building and skills development • Prepare guidelines for trauma and paramedical facilities. • Provide technical advice and assistance to public authorities on road safety and traffic management. MoRTH has advanced several major safety issues, in particular vehicle safety regulation, but the establishment of the Board is expected to lift performance further. 22 4 LEAD AGENCY PERFORMANCE IN AFRICA Road safety lead agencies in the sixteen countries engaged in this study operate in different legal and institutional contexts that are reflected in the performance of various functions. This section reports findings for the sixteen agencies as a whole under the following themes: 1. Institutions 2. Results focus 3. Coordination and promotion 4. Funding and capacity 5. Monitoring and evaluation 6. Performance. It then provides the results of the RSLA’s self-reporting of their own performance, the results of an analysis of the related eight systems/programs identified across countries, and responses to the six research questions. 4.1 Institutions Key Points The capacity of the RSLA to lead is regulated by the quality of its legal mandate, and many agency mandates require strengthening. The strength of the mandate typically improves with the establishment of autonomous agencies It is positive to note proposals to strengthen the lead agency mandate in some countries where national strategies had identified this need. Three institutional forms were identified. Seven agencies identified as government departments, five as autonomous agencies and the remainder as councils with a professional secretariat. No agencies took the opportunity provided to define themselves in another way. All but one of the RSLAs were established by a specific law which references their road safety responsibility. Half the RSLAs were created between 1991 and 2012, and a quarter between 2009 and 2012. Namibia’s National Road Safety Committee (NRSC) is the oldest, having been established in 1972 (although not operational until twenty years later), and Morocco’s National Road Safety Agency (NARSA) as the youngest, having been established in 2018. Figure 4 illustrates that the year of establishment does not always correspond to the year in which operations began in each country. 50% of RSLAs started work between 2007 and 2012. There are legal foundations for all but one of the agencies, but the quality of the legal mandate is important. Several of RSLAs have strong legal mandates, backed by Acts of Parliament, such as Nigeria’s Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Kenya’s National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) and NARSA. These are large autonomous agencies which each also hold major delivery responsibilities. In Uganda, the lead agency function within the Department of Transport Regulation and Safety is also fully described in a 2020 Act. 23 Figure 4: Establishment year and operational year The capacity of the RSLA to lead is regulated by the quality of its legal mandate, and many agency mandates require strengthening. An assessment of the legal mandates applying overall, and across the seven institutional road safety management functions is provided in Appendix 3. The strength of the mandate typically improves with the establishment of autonomous agencies, but the recent strengthening of Ghana’s National Road Safety Authority (NRSA) – previously the National Road Safety Commission – reflects the value of continuing to strengthen the legal mandate. It is positive to note firm proposals to strengthen the lead agency mandate in Cameroun which is another of the government departments, as well as in Namibia and in Mali where national strategies had identified this need. Ten of the agencies reported having a road safety policy document to guide them. Figure 5 below reveals that none of the councils had such a guiding document, highlighting a weakness in the council form. A well mandated agency is likely to have been provided a direct responsibility to establish the basis on which the country’s road safety effort will be undertaken. There is a national inter-agency body in three quarters of the countries covered by the study, sometimes multiple bodies such as in Morocco which has a formal governance system which extends well into local government and into technical areas. More than 60% of the inter-agency bodies were established under law and 80% have a terms of reference. 24 Figure 5: Legal establishment and existence of a guiding document Figure 6: Main activities of RSLA work groups Education RS Strategy Coordination RS Data Research Veh.Inspection Acc. Invest RSA RSI Veh.Reg Driving licence Infra.Reg Promotion Evaluation User.Reg RS Mgmt G.Affairs Veh.Inspectio RS RS Data n Promotion Strategy Acc. Invest Veh.Reg User.R eg Driving Coordinati RSA RS Education G.Affairs Research licence Evaluation on RSI Mgmt Infra… As might be expected, the internal organization of agencies was highly variable, given their scope and size. There were on average four work groups in each agency. Figure 6 above illustrates the various functions of those work groups as described by the RSLAs. The prominence given to education activity and to general government affairs is notable. Usually, the main functions of departments are focused on road safety education, road safety sensitization and general affairs. Road safety data, driver training and driving school regulations are the second most prevalent functions executed by departments of road safety agencies in Africa. It is notable that the departments of some RSLAs (such as Morocco and Kenya) display a dense 25 level of road safety management activities including, in addition to the above, road safety strategies, coordination and evaluation. The prominence given to motor vehicle and driver regulation activity (vehicle registration, inspection, driver licensing etc) reflects a general pattern of motor vehicle regulators being assigned road safety responsibilities. 4.2 Results Focus Key Points Country strategies are well aligned with global and continental frameworks but the delivery of road safety activities in line with safe system targets is unsatisfactory. There is a mismatch between the theoretical ambition of road safety set at a national level and the actual implementation of road safety activities. Not all stakeholders use respective strategies to achieve road safety objectives and goals, particularly those outside government. Most RSLAs undertake regular reviews of legislation but the results often do not comply with international road safety guidelines and good practices. The RSLAs are responsible for leading the national efforts to achieve the national road safety goals. In doing so, each needs to collaborate with stakeholders to establish a national road safety strategy and planning process which: • Recognises primary road safety issues at a national level • Sets an ambitious national vision and set of targets • Sets strategic directions and identifies primary interventions to realise that vision and achieve those targets • Details implementation arrangements relating to governance, planning, delivery and evaluation. National road safety strategies and plans provide the mechanism for national, regional and local stakeholders to agree on a roadmap for action to reduce fatal and serious injuries, on what will be done, by whom, and how. Almost all of the surveyed countries (93.33%) have a national road safety strategy or action plan in place (see Figure 7 below). Figure 7: Existence of a national road safety strategy or action plan 26 Overwhelmingly, as illustrated in Figure 8, RSLAs report that these strategies or action plans are aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the UN Decade of Action on Road Safety 2011-2020 and the African Road Safety Action Plan. Only a small minority considers that their strategy is not in line with these global and continental frameworks, which is important regardless of the overall road safety capacity of these countries to implement them. Figure 8: Alignment of national strategies Table 2 reports on the existence and nature of national road safety strategies and plans. The national road safety strategy is typically supported by an internal RSLA strategy or action plan reflecting the road safety vision and targets. In best cases, the RSLA’s strategic plan and/or business plan has been developed by internal team and/or supported by local consultants (60%). Despite the existence of these strategic documents for road safety, the lack of stable and sufficient funding is a real obstacle to the delivery, implementation and evaluation of road safety interventions. Although strategies and action plans are mostly in line with global orientations, implementation of road safety activities in line with the safe system and targets is unsatisfactory. A mismatch between the theoretical ambitions of road safety set at national level and actual production of road safety outputs (implementation) in line with the required trends is observed. 27 Table 2: Existence and nature of national strategies and plans Figure 9 below illustrates that most surveyed countries only include deaths (14) and some countries include serious injuries (8) in their final safety outcomes. Apart from the target for deaths, it is rare to observe other final safety outcomes – 20% for hospitalizations and 33% for economic cost of crashes – which are well defined and in line with global guidelines. Safety performance outcomes related to intermediate indicators (for interventions) and risk factors do not exist in most of the studied cases. The literature review revealed that hardly any impact evaluation (before and after) studies to understand the effectiveness of road safety interventions are done in Africa. Figure 9: Final safety outcomes Strategies and targets are good tools of management which assist organisations to achieve desired goals. National road safety strategies are directly linked to governance and leadership by the lead agency that carries the vision, strategy, targets, action plans and monitoring of implementation. An examination of the countries covered in this report show that countries are at different levels in 28 respect to development of current road safety strategies and targets. They range from having national strategies and plans which are being implemented albeit it with challenges, not having a strategy, and developing strategies for the next decade. This dynamic, that is largely internal to MDAs, partly explains why some stakeholders were ignorant of government road safety activities, with many assuming that road safety strategies are for internal use by MDAs in charge of transport. Most MDAs have annual targets and plans which are directly linked to the respective country strategy, and are also in line with their sector performance targets. Inclusion of road safety in the goals and objectives of MDAs is mainstreaming the road safety agenda. However, outside MDAs, not all stakeholders use respective strategies to achieve road safety objectives and goals. Some stakeholders noted that RSLAs are not doing well in reducing road crashes, largely due to unrealistic targets, inadequate funding and technical staff, and poor enforcement of regulations. In some cases, the action plans and the strategic targets are not aligned, and in other cases metropolitan, municipal and regional governments are not actively involved in road safety. These shortcomings undermine achievement of targets and RSLAs’ performance. There is need to involve key stakeholders right at conceptualization stage to generate buy-in, and improve engagement with stakeholders over time, in particular with community service organisations. In Namibia, stakeholders articulated a widely held view in the focus group discussions by emphasizing the need for all stakeholders to be responsible, stop pointing figures, act as one and ensure active involvement and coordination of activities and actors. All strategies are aimed at reversing the trend and reduction of number of deaths and serious injuries in line with the UN-Decade of Action Plan 2011 – 2020, achieving the goals of African road safety charter and the 2030 SDGs. There is also dedicated focus on care of the injured from scene of crash to hospital. Overall, the majority of RSLAs have a strategy or action plan. The strategies are aligned with UN Decade of action, African Union framework and SDG. However, a lack of data compromises a proper situation analysis, while implementation of strategies and plans is compromised by inadequate resources and weak engagement with stakeholders. The RSLAs need to work together with their partners and stakeholders to revise, update and approve targeted laws and regulations related to road user behaviour, driver licensing (testing/issue/regulation), vehicle safety and infrastructure safety with adequate sustainable funding and sufficient technical and support staff. Legislation Legislative reform is a key means of implementing strategy. RSLAs need to work with stakeholders to revise, update and approve targeted laws and regulations related to road user behaviors (e.g., speeding, drink driving, use of helmets/seatbelts/mobile phones), driver licensing (testing/issue/regulation), vehicle safety (e.g., safety regulations for importing or constructing vehicles, or for vehicle roadworthiness/registration) and infrastructure safety (e.g. requirements for road agency to provide safe roads, or undertake road safety inspections and audits). Figure 12 below illustrates that over 80% of RSLAs have undertaken revisions of legislation related to road safety. However, the content of these revisions often does not comply with international guidelines and good practices aimed at accelerating the maturity of road safety laws and regulations. The highest number of revisions relate to road user behaviors, but the revisions are infrequent and do not keep pace with the rapid development of road safety science. The legislative revisions in Africa are not following the trends required and this has a direct impact on preparing projects in line with international road safety guidance and good practice. 29 Figure 10: Periodic legislation reviews Good Practice: Road Safety Strategy, Mali During 2017, Mali’s National Road Safety Agency (ANASER) established an Inter-Departmental Working Group to conduct a high-level review of road safety performance and prepare a national road safety strategy, assisted by an international expert team funded by the Global Road Safety Facility. The team reviewed road safety performance and analysed available statistical data. High-level workshops were conducted to discuss the most important road casualty problems and solutions throughout the road traffic system on the basis of data, surveys and research, including the need to strengthen ANASER’s leadership mandate and capacity. The strategy was finalised in December 2017 and adopted by the Council of Ministers in January 2021, by a decree approving the National Road Safety Strategy 2021-2030 and the first of two action plans (2021-2025). Key elements of the Mali National Road Safety Strategy are: • It covers a strategic period of time: 10 years 2021-2030, aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals • It is based on the “Safe System” approach and the Global Plan for the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020 • Using 2017 as the basis, a target has been set to reduce fatalities by 50% by 2030, with an intermediate goal of reducing 25% of fatalities by 2025. The key strategic issues (areas of intervention) identified in the Mali road safety strategy are: • Safety of 2&3 motorized wheels • Pedestrian safety • Professional transport safety • Private vehicle safety, and • Safety of road users aged 15 to 34. Based on the strategic issues, personalized and adapted intervention measures were proposed in the form of a complete matrix associating each of the strategic issues with six road safety pillars – road safety management, safer roads and mobility, safer speed, safer vehicles, road user behavior, and post-crash response. To allow proper monitoring and evaluation over the course of the strategy, it contains a results framework associating the objectives of the strategy with the final result indicators, intermediate indicators and performance indicators. 30 Good Practice: Legislation, Nigeria Enforcement of road safety law is a critical issue across Africa, but good enforcement relies firstly on a good legal framework for road safety and the lead agency needs to have a mandate to lead in the overall regulatory and compliance framework. This is traditionally important in regulating motor vehicles, motor vehicle drivers, and commercial transport operators, but effective speed management requires good regulatory management, as well as institutional settings highlighted by this study, which can extend into safe road management and post-crash response. Under its establishment legislation, Nigeria’s Federal Road Safety Corps is responsible for • determining requirements for vehicle identification and driver licensing; • standardising highway traffic codes; • determining and enforcing speed limits for all roads and vehicles, and controlling the use of speed limiting devices; • giving prompt attention and care to victims of accidents; • making regulations in pursuance of any of the functions assigned to the Corps, including the National Road Traffic Regulations, which establishes State-based regulatory bodies. This has led to a strong body of legislative instruments in Nigeria broadly aligned with WHO recommended standards for speed limits, legal alcohol levels, motorcycle helmet wearing, seatbelt and child restraint requirements and mobile phone use. Most recently, Nigeria has taken the lead in Africa by systematically adopting critical vehicle safety technology standards. Vehicle safety is a critical area of concern for any country, and in 2018, Nigeria acceded to five international agreements, identified as road safety priorities by the United Nations, the most significant of which relate to the regulation of motor vehicle safety standards. This has meant Nigeria is able to regulate frontal and side impact protection, electronic stability control, pedestrian protection, occupant restraints and motorcycle anti-lock braking systems, as recommended by the WHO, and makes it much easier for Nigeria to also begin to control the safety of imported used vehicles. Enforcement and compliance systems must be aligned with the intent of the law, and as these systems are improved, the legal standards which have been set by the FRSC increase the potential for safer environments into the future. 4.3 Coordination and promotion Key Points There is insufficient attention given to inter-agency governance structures which bring different arms of government together, and supports engagement of stakeholders outside government. MDAs are more likely to be engaged by RSLAs in coordinating road safety activity, and stakeholders outside government are much less likely to be engaged by RSLAs. Coordination is skewed towards the needs of RSLAs rather than towards a continual systematic coordination anchored in road safety strategy and planning. Not all RSLAs have been able to exploit the powerful ministries within which they are located to strengthen governance, coordination and promotion activity. Road safety is a complex field with many sectors and actors, both public and private, having direct responsibilities for and interests in the prevention of road traffic injury. Road traffic injuries are themselves the result of complex interactions between several interdependent factors related to 31 humans (motor vehicle drivers and other road users), the environment (road design and management, weather and light conditions), and vehicles (technical quality and protection). These layers of complexity require efficient coordination and engagement of stakeholders, promoting all aspects of road traffic injury prevention such as user safety, infrastructure safety, vehicle safety, post-crash response, traffic rules and enforcement, education and promotion, and data collection, analysis and sharing. An important starting point is a governance mechanism which brings together different arms of government. Three quarters of responses reported the existence of an inter-agency body, and nearly two thirds of these were established under law. Of the lead agencies with the strongest legal mandates, only Nigeria and Morocco have inter-agency governance bodies in place. These agencies are large, deliver multiple services, and are potentially very influential, but they are not omnipotent. The governance bodies they work to and with (Nigeria’s National Road Safety Advisory Council, chaired by the Vice President, and Morocco’s Interministerial Road Safety Committee, chaired by the Prime Minister) provide important means of amplifying road safety imperatives and generating commitment to road safety across government and society. Figure 11: Existence and legal status of national inter-agency bodies RSLAs were asked to rate the effectiveness of the interagency body. Among the 11 countries that report the existence of an interagency body, the average effectiveness rating assigned by the lead agency is 2.7 out of a possible 5. As illustrated in Figure 12, four lead agencies rated the effectiveness of these governance bodies poorly (being 1 or 2 out of 5), and only two rated the body positively at 4 out of 5. 32 Figure 12: RSLA rating of inter-agency bodies The RSLA needs to coordinate and align road safety interventions and management functions to support achievement of national targets. The RSLAs cannot succeed on their own, they have to work with all stakeholders to leverage their different strengths and capacities for successful implementation of strategies and plans. Figure 13 indicates that four out of five have a legal mandate to coordinate all government and non-government stakeholders in order to achieve road safety goals. There is an agreed work program among stakeholders in most countries, and, in almost all countries, other government agencies include road safety objectives in their strategies and plans. Figure 13: Coordination mandate, and status RSLAs were asked to rate the effectiveness of their coordination with different groups of stakeholders, and the results are illustrated in Figure 14. 33 Figure 14: RSLA rating of effectiveness of their coordination with stakeholders The average rating RSLAs gave themselves in effectiveness of coordination was 3.2 out of 5. The highest ratings were for the effectiveness of their coordination with the Ministry of Transport and with Traffic Police – this reflects the primary responsibility of road safety within the transport sector, and the traditional perspective of the problem as one of compliance. The lowest ratings were for their coordination with local governments, communities and private sector organizations, which is of concern as these groups directly interact with issues of road safety, including crash, injury and fatality scenes. 4.3.1 Stakeholder engagement These results were largely validated in discussions with stakeholders across countries – there is more coordination, and more effective coordination, activity between the RSLA and the MDAs, with whom they share similar points of reference in their bureaucratic structures and culture of work. This is different from stakeholders outside government in academia, business and community entities who do not feel they are actively connected with the national road safety effort by the RSLA. From the perspectives of road safety stakeholders, coordination is largely taking place between MDAs, better than that between other stakeholders, but the findings nevertheless reveal challenges within the MDAs. The MDAs in Africa are the driving force behind road safety policies, strategies and plans, but their internal coordination is weak. In some cases, they have overlapping responsibilities without clear coordination mechanisms. In cases where mechanisms exist, implementation is generally poor. Stakeholders attribute coordination weaknesses to several factors, namely: 1. Lack of authority over the other agencies 2. Non-binding decisions of agencies 34 3. Actions being limited to recommendations and advisory 4. Lack of data to inform decisions 5. Lack of technical expertise, and 6. Financial constraints. Stakeholders have reported MDAs contributing to road safety goals in isolation from each other, and a need for efficient inter-agency coordination. Examples provided include South Africa and Tunisia where there were issues raised about the mandate, and in Uganda where there is no inter- agency coordination mechanism at all. The National Road Safety Committee in Egypt was considered moribund, and in Cameroun coordination is through the National Road Council, with stakeholders reporting that the National Road Safety Committee is weak and hardly meets. Each country faces different governance and coordination challenges, but one confounder is where the national constitution embeds a strong federal system. This presents significant challenges for a small professional secretariat such as in Ethiopia, but also for the large FRSC in Nigeria where there is significant operational staffing in all 36 States but not all states have established the necessary institutions to engage with the national leadership on the issue. Similar federal issues are reported in Kenya and South Africa. In one country, the national road safety lead agency was actually viewed as a competitor by sub-national jurisdictions due to the allocation of responsibilities, and revenue, associated with motor vehicle revenue. Coordination and engagement with community service organisations and the private sector varies across countries ranging between weak and good. Good coordination was generally reported in Namibia, Ghana and Mali. In Namibia, for example, the NRSC secretariat engages stakeholders in activities and communication through emails and WhatsApp, and facilitates an Annual Road Safety Conference and workshop, which keeps stakeholders informed of activities. However, gaps were reported in their support for stakeholders’ road safety activities, and attendance at stakeholder meetings and activities. Across all countries, stakeholders uniformly expressed an interest in being involved in RSLA activities, and RSLA involvement in their activities. However, stakeholders do not generally take into consideration the National Road Safety Strategy when planning their strategies, even though they are contributing to the general goal. It was noted that the weak coordination makes it difficult for stakeholders to contribute to road safety goals. A common call amongst stakeholders was for formal engagement as decisions are made, resources are allocated, perfomance is monitored and strategies are reviewed. This was irrespective of the institutional form of the RSLA. Any governance, coordination or wider engagement barriers that exist will inevitably affect the extent to which the RSLA performs its function of promoting road safety within society. The agency is expected to ensure that knowledge on road safety, including policies, laws, regulations, strategies, plans and targets are well known to the public and, to all stakeholders. Furthermore, the RSLA is expected to coordinate all the promotional activities geared towards achievement of road safety goals. Although promotion is taking place across the sixteen countries covered in the study, the activities are largely conducted in an incoherent manner. Stakeholder reports of cooperation and coordination on promotional activities by the RSLA are the exception. Some information about key safety behaviours by users is likely to remain important, but the scale of the road safety challenge across Africa requires a much more strategic promotional approach. All stakeholders need to be sufficiently informed to advocate for major reform, such as increased investment, safer road environments, or better regulation and enforcement. The road safety 35 promotional activities mainly cover education and awareness creation, which include development and production of educational materials, educating the public, advocacy and sensitization activities in workshops and open forums. These activities are accompanied by production of campaign materials such as T-shirts, hats, brochures, and booklets targeting particular category of road users, in particular children, non-usage of phones by drivers, and over-speeding. Most countries have no coordinated approach to promotion of road safety which creates a risk of the promotion function lapsing into simply telling users how to behave rather than taking a more strategic approach. A coordinated approach would leverage available road safety resources across stakeholders for targeted and prioritised promotional activities. Community service organisations are important in this area because some of them have cooperation with international non- government organisations and other development partners, especially in the areas of training and advocacy. Poor coordination of promotional activities is related to poor coordination of road safety stakeholders, and poor governance of road safety at a national multi-sectoral level. Development of a mechanism for coordinating road safety stakeholders would highly benefit promotional activities. Such a mechanism could have a sub group or committee facilitated by the RSLA to coordinate the many promotional activities taking place across Africa in respective countries. Ineffective monitoring and evaluation also affects promotional activities because it limits the dissemination of data and status of road safety goals which enable targeted promotional activities, as opposed to generalised promotions unconnected to a reform program. 36 Good Practice: Governance and Coordination, Morocco The quality of the legal mandate for an RLSA depends in part on the inter-agency governance and wider coordination mechanisms that facilitate the orchestration and alignment of interventions and institutional management functions delivered by government partners and related community and business partnerships to achieve the desired focus on results. Morocco’s governance and coordination systems were established in 2006 and updated in 2020 when the National Road Safety Agency was operationalized. There are three key dimensions: • horizontal governance and coordination across central government • vertical integration from central to regional and local levels of government • delivery partnerships between government, non-government and business at the central, regional and local levels. Chaired by the Prime Interministerial Road Minister, comprising relevant Ministers Safety Committee Member & Secretariat Ministry of Transport & Chairman Logistics Chaired by Minster of Minister is Chair Transport & Logistics, Permanent Road Safety of NRSA Board comprising Ministers’ Committee representatives National Road Safety Secretariat Agency Chaired by the regional Regional Road Safety Governor, comprising local stakeholders Committees (x12) Secretariat NRSA Regional Officees There are three main management levels: • The Interministerial Road Safety Committee, chaired by the Prime Minister and made up of all ministers concerned by the road safety issue • The Permanent Road Safety Committee, chaired by the Minister of Transport & Logistics and made up of representatives of the Inter-ministerial Road Safety Committee which is responsible for preparing national strategies and action plans, and coordinate and monitor implementation • The Regional Road Safety Committees, chaired by the regional governor and made up of local road safety stakeholders. These arrangements provide a decision-making hierarchy and partnership framework for achieving road safety goals through developing, implementing and monitoring national road safety strategies, plans and performance targets which have been agreed across government. Similar arrangement are in plance in Nigeria where, with the support of the Federal Road Safety Corps, the Vice President chairs the National Road Safety Advisory Council which approves the road safety strategy, the Minister of Transport chairs the Technical Working Group, while some States have also established statewide structures. 37 4.4 Monitoring and evaluation Key Points Monitoring, evaluation and learning is critical to road safety but is not prioritised by RSLAs: o Safety performance indicators (for interventions) and risk factors do not exist in most countries, and few countries monitor and evaluate them o There are hardly any impact evaluations (before and after studies) to understand the effectiveness of road safety interventions o Most countries do not have centralised crash data and clear definitions on issues such as injury status and black spots Poor data systems result in under reporting of fatalities, and in isolated cases where data is reliable there is minimal effort for deeper analysis to obtain insights on road safety Data is the domain of the police, ministries of health, transport, citizen registries, judiciary and insurance firms, but oversight and coordination by RSLA is vital. Data gathering and information sharing are useful for monitoring, evaluation and stakeholder engagement. However, most countries are weak in data gathering, analysis, storage and sharing. Few countries undertake monitoring and evaluation of key performance indicators and related targets that have been set for performance management purposes. These inefficiencies affect the performance of RSLAs and stakeholders. It is not possible to efficiently involve stakeholders and improve road safety performance without data and information. Road safety data: • Highlights the extent of road safety problems • Informs development of road safety policies, strategies, and action plans • Helps monitor trends, and drive future road safety improvement • Helps identify high risk road user groups, location and risk factors influencing road traffic crashes • Provides knowledge for road safety education and enforcement of programmes, as well as the overall evaluation of effectiveness of road safety targets. Data is actually largely the domain of other government agencies responsible for different functions such as police, ministries of health and related facilities, transport, citizen registry, judiciary and insurance firms. Some of these agencies take responsibility for monitoring specific indicators to feed into road safety. RSLAs do not need to be directly in charge of road safety data collection and management, but they do need to ensure that the systems are in place to allow effective monitoring and evaluation for road safety in respective countries. Good governance and operational arrangements are needed for road safety data systems to be effective, and valuable for all relevant MDAs and other stakeholders. Figure 15 below reveals that the basic variables of road crashes such as fatalities and injuries are widely collected and shared by RSLAs and their partners. However, it also illustrates that road crash data types related to intermediate indicators and risk factors such as child restraint, motorcycle helmet use and drink driving are largely not collected. 38 Figure 15: Type of data gathered and shared across agencies RSLAs and stakeholders do not consider that death and injury reporting is accurate (Figure 16). Almost all countries (86,7%) define road traffic death as having occurred within 30 days of the road crash, in line with the WHO definition, but this is not reflected in data provided by the RSLAs. Figure 16: Accuracy, production of reports, and deaths within 30 days Most countries (80%) are considering having a centralized police and hospital data system coordinated by the RSLA, although road safety agencies have a limited role in defining the types of data to be collected. Their role (90%) is concentrated in regularly analysing data in order to improve strategies and interventions. Some countries only collect fatality data at the scene of a crash, and others have no limit concerning the duration after which a fatality occurred. A result of these poor data systems is that countries are typically under reporting fatalities. 39 Reported data generated by countries is different to the estimates often used by multilateral agencies such as WHO, the World Bank and the African Development Bank. Table 4 below provides a ratio of WHO’s estimated fatalities to each countries’ reported fatalities. Ideally, the ratio is 1:1, as it is in South Africa, with Namibia and Egypt also showing a close match. WHO’s use of multiple data sources to provide a consistent estimate, while countries use single source, could explain the difference. Thus data remains a concern that is being addressed by countries, and the establishment of the Africa Road Safety Observatory is particularly positive in this regard. Table 3: Ratio of WHO estimated fatalities to reported fatalities (2010-16) 2010 2013 2016 Change Cameroon 2.9 5.8 3.8 0.9 Chad 1 2 3.6 2.5 Cote d’Ivoire 5.9 5.8 5.6 -0.3 DR Congo 41.4 45 68.9 27.5 Egypt 1.1 1.2 1.1 0 Ethiopia 5.8 7.1 6.3 0.5 Ghana 2.7 3 3.9 1.2 Kenya 2.9 4 4.5 1.6 Mali 4.8 7.4 7.7 2.9 Morocco 1.5 1.8 1.8 -0.3 Mozambique 1.7 4.7 6.3 4.6 Namibia 2 1.4 1 -1 Nigeria 10.1 5.5 7.9 -2.2 South Africa 1.1 1 1 -0.1 Tunisia 1.6 1.8 1.8 0.2 Uganda 3.3 3.6 3.4 0.1 Most agencies are not directly in charge of collecting crash data, but they are responsible for data sharing and communication of national figures. Some agencies work closely with police to collect data, but the data is not complete. Efficient data collection includes following post-crash victims until the 30th day of accident, which most RSLAs are not efficiently coordinating. RSLAs are generally weak at coordinating the gathering of reliable data to inform national and regional road safety plans. Data is drawn from several sources which include police, hospitals, insurance companies, births and death registries, accidents and investigators, with police being the dominant source. However, in most cases there is minimal link between police and hospitals that receive crash victims. Few countries ensure crash data collection from the time a crash is recorded with formalised procedures for daily data entry, follow up sheets and prioritised statistics that is communicated to relevant MDAs and other stakeholders. Access to data is a major challenge even in cases where data is available. Some agencies have agreements with the MDAs collecting data, in particular police to access data on a regular basis. 40 However, some country regions and local authorities do not have access to their own data apart from aggregated tables which are not adequate for targeted interventions. Making data available would allow for crowd sourcing of analysis and provision of credible, valuable and additional insights on road safety problems. Stakeholders argued that inadequate data make it difficult to draw conclusions about scale of road safety problem. Some stakeholders called for development of national crash data bases, linkage between police and hospitals and development of standardised smart phone mobile application to enable recording of crash data, including global positioning system location. Such data should be relayed to a centralised and automated data system. Figure 17 below shows signs of periodic evaluations of road safety interventions, although one third of countries do not undertake periodic evaluations. The majority of evaluations are conducted by internal staff and paid by the RSLA, which is commendable. However, in spite of the evaluations, most countries do not have centralised national crash data, and clarity of definitions such as injury status and black spots. Figure 17: Conduct and Funding of Evaluations Research and academic institutions seem to have access to data with some providing useful data for road safety interventions. Some of these institutions access raw data for detailed analysis. This is a step in the right direction which should be extended to other stakeholders for use and response to road safety targets. For example, the Building and Road Research Institute (BRRI) in Ghana has data analysis software. The agency gets data from police, hospitals, insurance companies, births, deaths registry, accidents and investigators. In Uganda, Makerere University, School of Public Health collect own data from various sources, analyse and convert to fit their purposes. The school has a database on road traffic injury. However, this data is not updated and there is need for RSLA to harmonise the data and to exploit stakeholders’ capacities in data generation and analysis with the agency as the repository of data. Universities in South Africa and Namibia also had better access to data compared to other stakeholders. In 2018 a conceptualisation of an integrated system of collection of data, analysis and dissemination on road safety funded by the World Bank was completed in Cameroun. The system pulls data together from the national police, the National Gendamarie, hospitals, Ministry of Transport, and National Institute of Statistics and insurance companies. The data is centralised in 41 an independent entity at the national School of Public Works, which releases data after validation by Ministry of Transport and National Institute of Statistics. Good Practice: Monitoring and evaluation, South Africa Continual investment in good road safety data is essential to develop and strengthen road safety performance over time. South Africa’s road fatality data system is one of the very best in Africa, and is led by the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) which has legislative responsibilities in this area. The primary collector of fatal crash data is the South African Police Service (SAPS) which complete Culpable Homicide Crash Observation Report (CHoCOR) forms across its network of police stations. The CHoCOR forms are forwarded on to the RTMC which processes and validates the data. Fatal crashes are reported within 24 hours, but the official fatality record is in accordance with the international 30-day standard definition. Over the course of the first Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020, South Africa closed the gap between the WHO fatality estimates, and the official fatality records, validating the overall system as both stable and improving. South Africa recorded 92.6% of the WHO estimate in 2010, 96.2% in 2013, and 97% in 2016. Nevertheless, it is critical to recognise and work towards the next level of data improvements. In South Africa, injury data needs to be significantly improved, and the National Road Safety Strategy prioritises a new crash reporting framework for improving the collection and accuracy of data, and strengthening the data sharing programme across the private and public sector. There are gaps in South Africa’s monitoring of safety performance data such as those set out in the UN voluntary road safety performance targets (for example speeding, drink driving and seatbelt wearing), but there is a clear priority given to monitoring and reporting available data, and the RTMC prepares and publishes annual road safety reports. The most recent reports include detailed information tracking implementation of the national strategy, significantly increasing transparency of government activity amongst road safety stakeholders.8 This includes a time series of the estimated cost of crashes, based on a local economic analysis in South Africa, which strengthens the safety investment cases to government. Road safety data is rarely perfect and complete, and RSLAs need to constantly work on their own data system – other examples are the efforts made by Kenya to identify and close the gap between fatality data collected by police and vital registration data collected through the health sector, and by Nigeria to significantly increase data collection and coordination systems at local government levels. Overall, RSLA responses suggest that monitoring, evaluation and learning which should be the core of road safety is not prioritised by RSLAs. There are some on-going initiatives of computerization and centralization of road safety data, in particular road traffic injury, but few countries are advanced in embracing computerised & centralised road safety data systems. There are deficits in data relevant for ensuring road safety, which could explain the high injury and death rates in Africa. Most countries have intermediate safety performance indicators focusing on driving exceeding speed limit, percentage of drivers with illegal blood alcohol levels, seat belt and motorcycle helmet wearing rates, but these outcomes are not efficiently monitored using data. In the absence of reliable data on location, frequency, severity and types of crashes, determination of why crashes occur and how they are best prevented can never be complete. Data shortcomings undermine RSLA performance. 8 See the full 2020 report at https://www.rtmc.co.za/images/rtmc/docs/traffic_reports/fqyr/V1.6- RTMC_State_of_Road_Safety_Report_JanToDec_2020.pdf 42 4.5 Funding and capacity Key Points The lack of stable and sufficient funding is a real obstacle to implementation and evaluation of road safety interventions, and five of the sixteen RSLAs had no funding for their road safety approved strategic plan. Insufficient use is made of sustainable domestic funding sources such as a fuel levies or insurance premiums. Half the RSLAs reported they had 50-75% of the required resources to deliver on their mandate, and more than 40% had less than half of the required resources. RSLAs operate at below average financial and human resources, and cannot fulfil their mandated functions, including hiring adequate and skilled human resource to undertake road safety functions. There is a significant funding and human resources deficit in Africa’s road safety ecosystem. This undermines the effective performance of RSLAs. This challenge faces agencies irrespective of their legislative mandate, the political support, the stakeholder engagement, the strategy development, coordination efforts, and the data systems. The stakeholders both inside and outside government also need financial and human resources. Both sets of resources need to be considered in terms of what the RSLA needs to perform its functions, and what their stakeholders need to perform their functions. The findings reveal that RSLAs operate at below average financial and human resources, and cannot effectively fulfil their mandated functions, including hiring adequate human resource to undertake the road safety functions. Development partners and CSOs provide some technical support and funding, in particular in the areas of data management, development of policies, strategies and creation of road safety awareness. Sustained funding sources are necessary for the RSLA, and the RSLA needs to be engaged in decision making regarding the allocation of available safety funds. This decision making involves setting safety budgets, setting revenue streams to fund those budgets, and ensuring that budgets are allocated to activities which will generate the greatest returns. An effective strategy should be supported by a funded multi-agency action plan to implement the road safety strategy, focused on evidence-based interventions. An examination of the RSLAs main revenue sources reveal that the national budget and the national treasury are the basic revenue sources for 73% of the agencies. In addition, the national road fund and the responsible ministry are noted to be institutional sources of funding for 60% of the surveyed countries. Very little use is made of fuel levies or insurance levies, although these may already be incorporated into Road Fund revenues. 43 Figure 18: Main revenue and funding sources for RSLA budget Other institutional sources to fund the RSLA budget Other revenue sources to fund the RSLA budget The insurance levy is a revenue source to fund the RSLA… The fines is a revenue source to fund the RSLA budget The fees and charges is a revenue source to fund the RSLA… The fuel levy is a revenue source to fund the RSLA budget The national road fund is an institutional source to fund… The responsible ministry is an institutional source to fund… The national treasury is an institutional source to fund the… The national budget is a revenue source to fund the RSLA… 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Yes No Not Available In most countries ministerial departments fund projects that are part of the implementation of road safety sector strategies and are included in actual plans and budgets of respective departments. Observations of stakeholders included the need for RSLAs to have a multi-year investment programme designed to mobilise community service organisations and international donors in support of road safety strategies. Long term funding was considered necessary to execute strategies, with specific concern expressed for effective crash investigation, prosecution, and victim support, the deployment of enforcement officers, and digital options for efficient services. The public sector remains the leading financier of road safety in Africa, followed by the private sector and Multilateral Development Banks (Figure 19). Figure 19: Main road safety funders Multilateral Development Banks Private sector Public sector 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Yes No Not available 44 The annual budget allocated to the different departments shows a huge contrast reflects the widely differing operational mandates and populations (Table 4). The budget ranges from a few thousand dollars (Egypt for instance with 7500 USD) to hundreds of millions of dollars (Morocco and Nigeria). Six agencies reported budgets less than USD 1 million per year. Table 4: Amount allocated to RSLA (USD) 2018/2019 2019/2020 2020/2021 USD USD USD KENYA 320,400 338,200 267,000 ETHIOPIA 2,104,410 5250 2,102,856 GHANA 3,399,770 4,792,778 5,055,072 NAMIBIA 4,686,252 3,865,984 4,996,544 MALI 2,853,609 2,985,115 3,860,147 UGANDA 800,000 810,000 820,000 MAROC -- 100,000,000 180,000,000 EGYPT 7500 7500 7500 NIGERIA 85,175,694 97,233,933 103,346,277 TCHAD 297,500 360,400 487,900 COTE D’IVOIRE 603,999 5,419,617 6,338,155 MOZAMBIQUE 8,571,429 9,071,429 125,714 SOUTH AFRICA -- -- 809,855 The study did not investigate how the public sector budget is allocated, but in literature, budget prioritises payment of existing human resource and administrative costs. This leaves gaps in activities geared towards road safety action plans. A total of five RSLAs had no funding for their road safety approved strategic plans. The study revealed that 93.3% of the agencies consider that the 2020/2021 budget is not sufficient to deliver mandated functions. Figure 20 reveals that half the RSLAs had 50-75% of the required resources to deliver on their mandate, and more than 40% had less than half of the required resources. Stakeholders provided examples where budget deficits were very high – for example, a 300 million budget being reduced to 73 million in local currency. Taking into account the mandates of these agencies, their current budget and their achievements in past years, RSLAs have difficulty estimating their real financial need or to understand the road safety missions to be delivered. The capacity of these African agencies is weak and needs rapid strengthening. Stakeholders consider the agencies have not effectively exploited opportunities that could support programmes with minimal funds. Examples include using universities to host road safety programmes, and involving faculties to address issues highlighted in the Decade for Road Safety 2021 – 2030. Some 45 universities and knowledge generation organisations are already contributing to road safety outcomes on their own initiative. Figure 20: Satisfaction of funding and proportion of required resources Road safety agencies in Africa lack sufficient and stable financial resources to carry out their mission. One of the important observations is that where the budget is lacking, human resources are also lacking. For example, the NTSA in Kenya is made up of three departments employing 470 staff while the NARSA in Morocco is made up of six departments employing 205 staff (see Figure 21 below). Nigeria is an exception with a very high number of staff 60,794. With the exception of Nigeria, Morocco, Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa and Ghana, the RSLAs reported that they do not employ the technical and support staff whom are needed and approved. Figure 21: Total RSLA technical staff 46 Good Practice: Sustainable Funding, Ghana Funding and resource allocation concerns the financing of interventions and related institutional management functions on a sustainable basis using a rational evaluation and programming framework to allocate resources to achieve the desired focus on results. As part of a reform of the lead agency mandate in Ghana, the National Road Safety Authority Act 2019, previous generic referencing to funds for road safety were made much more explicit and expanded to include regulatory fees. The Act provides that the funds of the National Road Safety Authority include: • 2.5% of revenue accruing to the Ghana Road Fund • 2% of revenue accruing to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority from vehicle and driver testing services • A percentage of revenue accruing to the National Insurance Commission for motor insurance, to be reviewed annually by the NIC, the NRSA and the Ghana Insurance Association. By establishing a percentage of revenues from these sources, the Authority’s legislated revenue streams will rise with increased activity, and provide a much more sustainable funding mechanism over time. There has been a significant rise in NRSA budget from the 2018/19 to 2020/21 financial years – through an increase in funds allocated from the Ghana Road Fund of 85% to USD 3.76 million, and an increase in total budget of nearly 50% to USD 5.06 million. Additional funding comes with additional responsibility, and more importantly opportunity to strengthen the safety response by NRSA and its stakeholders. While the NRSA budget is still considered to be sufficient to cover only 50-75% of the required resources to deliver on its mandated functions, it appears that there has been a considerable strengthening in the financial resources of the agency. The National Road Safety Authority in Morocco has a large set of functions, and a much bigger budget USD 200 million (2021), which is drawn from a large range of sources, including: • Central government budget allocation • Regulatory vehicle (eg registration) and driver charges (eg driver licence issue) • Contributions from the fuel levy, and from compulsory insurance premiums • Contributions from automotive, fuel distribution and insurance companies • Fixed speed camera fines (cameras are operated by NRSA). It is important that countries establish sustainable funding for the lead agency’s road safety efforts, and that the lead agency is involved in the funding and allocation processes for safety budgets across government. A legislative basis for this wider funding and resource allocation role is in the National Transport and Safety Authority Act in Kenya, which establishes that a safety levy can be applied to motor vehicle regulatory activity and compulsory insurance policies, and paid into a fund to implement road safety strategies. However, this has not yet been operationalized. Tunisia has a national road safety fund (Fonds de Prévention des Accidents de la Circulation) managed by the Ministry of Interior. Insurance levies form the core revenue source for the fund which is limited to financing awareness raising programmes and campaigns, training, studies and research, and the acquisition and installation of certain equipment. An advisory committee for the fund includes representatives of the ministries responsible for transport and infrastructure and representatives of consumer protection and professional bodies. 47 The deficit in technical and support staff is partially filled by development partners who support building of national capacity and technical skills in road safety initiatives, policy reviews, data management and in isolated cases project proposal writing and programme management. Figure 22 illustrates that the highest funding priorities are for funding and investment bids, road safety advocacy and information, review of laws, policies and standards, post-crash response, and personnel and capacity building. Although data collection, analysis and sharing are lacking in Africa, this was the lowest funding priority for RSLAs. Figure 22: RSLA funding priorities (average, 1 lowest to 10 highest) 4.6 Performance Measuring and specifying the performance of road safety lead agencies is difficult. At a country level, the overall performance can be clearly measured in terms of deaths and serious injuries, and this must be the overall measure which the lead agency uses itself. However, assigning a statement of RSLA performance against those final safety outcomes does not reflect the myriad of factors that directly affect performance. RSLAs were invited to rate the factors that may constrain their performance. Nine constraining factors were identified and the RSLAs were asked to rate each factor on a scale of 1 (least problematic) to 5 (most problematic). None of the agencies took up the opportunity provided to identify other constraining factors. They identified funding as the most problematic constraint affecting performance, with a rating of 4.3 out of 5. Ineffective enforcement of regulations was the next most problematic constraint, followed by system constraints, lack of data and lack of up to date legislation. Legal constraints were identified as the least problematic, although it still rated over 2.7 out of 5 (figure 23). 48 Figure 23: RSLA rating of factors affecting performance RSLAs were also invited to self-rate their overall performance in regard to 14 activities that need to be done to support sustained reductions in serious road trauma. None of the agencies took up the opportunity provided to identify other aspects of performance. The RSLAs rated their performance on a scale of 1 (least positive) to 5 (most positive). Figure 24: RSLA rating of their own performance 49 The highest average rating of RSLA performance on this scale was around 4 out of 5, for the following activities: • Managing resource allocation of available road safety funding • Promoting effective road safety activities by government and other stakeholders • Promoting road safety within the community • Compilation and dissemination of national road safety statistics. The lowest average rating of RSLA performance on this scale was just over 2.5 out of 5, for coordinating road safety activities across different levels of government, and strategic road safety research and knowledge transfer. A more precise statement of performance across the agencies may be to focus less on the rating of activities, and more on the presence of programs and systems. Drawing from the institutional road safety management functions identified earlier in the report, eight more precise programs and systems were defined. They were assessed by the researchers on the basis of the questionnaire and the stakeholder focus group discussions, and placed into low, medium and high bands, as illustrated in Table 5. Table 5: Agency strength across programs and systems Function Program/System Rationale Agencies’ Strength Results Focus The existence of a Necessary for a lead High – most agencies modern national road agency to work towards can point to a national safety policy, strategy defined goals, targets document they have and/or action plan and objectives prepared, some being better than others Coordination A road safety Necessary for a lead Medium – Only some governance system agency to bring agencies are able to with an inter-agency stakeholders together in draw upon support body and stakeholder a focused national from inter-agency and engagement effort stakeholder processes Legislation Recent and/or regular Necessary to ensure Medium – Some reviews of significant that agencies are conducting legislation and Parliament/Government regular reviews, but compliance issues is keeping pace with these tend to be the good practice bigger agencies only Funding A defined role in Necessary to advocate Low – While some allocating safety for greater allocation of agencies have internal resources across available resources to funding systems, there government and the road safety goals are very few engaged in community wider safety funding mechanisms 50 Promotion Regular promotion of Necessary to ensure Low – While rated well road safety amongst that stakeholders and by RSLAs themselves, key stakeholders and decision makers have this is not supported by decision makers road safety at the front the data generated in of mind this study Monitoring & A demonstrable focus Necessary to Low – Some but not all Evaluation on improving the continually improve agencies actively quality of crash data data, and improve recognise data issues safety decision making and are seeking to and delivery directly tackle them A program of Necessary to track Medium – Agencies are monitoring road safety progress across all monitoring progress, performance factors aspects and but not generally in a and deliverables stakeholders and hold manner consistent with them to account good practice Research & Regular research, Necessary to continue Low – there are few Development and development and to push past immediate agencies that have Knowledge Transfer capacity building horizons and build active research and projects capacity for the future capacity building programs in place It is notable that the aspects which RSLAs rated themselves higher on were not always evident to the researchers in the data that was collected – road safety promotion amongst stakeholders, and defined safety funding roles for example. This perhaps relates to the way in which the safety tasks are defined – it is possible, for example, that RSLAs are very effective in managing the internal resources they have control over, and that RSLAs are not effectively engaged in lifting the safety funding available to the sector as a whole. 4.6.1 Analysis The research questions regarding road safety lead agency performance are challenging questions in any environment, and a systematic approach was taken to collect the best available data in Africa which would allow these questions to be answered for Africa. 1. What are the organisational and performance characteristics of effective lead agencies? RSLAs operate in a complex environment with many institutions and actors, which have to be taken into consideration when analysing their performance. Leaving aside challenges with identifying accurate reporting of fatalities and serious injuries, it is not useful to refer to fatalities and serious injuries as the basis of performance by which lead agencies in Africa can be assessed. There are simply too many variables, starting with the legal mandate and resourcing of the lead agency, and including a complex set of institutional arrangements across a diverse sector. Fourteen activities were identified upon which the RSLAs rated themselves. A further eight practical program or system features were identified as the basis for researchers to assess the strength of the agencies. An assessment of the legal mandate for countries, which impacts on the ability of the RSLA to perform, highlighted only four RSLAs (Ghana, Kenya, Morocco and Nigeria) had strong mandates. This does not mean their performance is high, but it provides a 51 much better basis on which to improve. It is notable that one of them, Ghana, has just emerged from a strengthening process, highlighting the need for continual work in this area. 2. How do these characteristics manifest themselves in lead agencies in low- and middle- income (African) countries? Of the eight practical program or system features, only the presence of a national road safety strategy, policy or action plan rated highly across the study countries. The lowest rating features, based on the data available to the researchers, related to promotion, funding, crash data and research and capacity building. African countries are encouraged to undertake their own assessment against the results of this study and identify the key areas in which progress is required. They should consider the quality of their institution response to road safety, and what can be done to improve this response. 3. Under what circumstances is one model of organization more appropriate than the other? This study does not allow us to conclude that one model of organisation for RSLAs is more appropriate than another. Each country’s governmental structure and system has evolved in its own way, at different times, and in response to different factors. It is notable that two countries with the weakest institutional mandates – Egypt and DR Congo – are simultaneously the safest and least safe of the study countries. It is more important to consider the current institutional settings for road safety in a country and to assess how those settings can be improved in that country, than to define the best model. Some of the biggest lead agencies appear to have the strongest potential to achieve substantial results – Morocco’s NARSA being an example. However, a much smaller lead agency in Ghana has significantly strengthened its institutional settings, and potential. 4. To what extent does the mechanism by which they are set up and their capacity address their effectiveness for leading and coordinating road safety stakeholders and deliver their mandate of achieving national and SDG road safety targets? A review of the establishment of each agency highlights the critical nature of the legal mandate that each agency has, whether or not they are a government department, a stand-alone agency or a coordinating committee. Without a clear mandate, lead agencies cannot effectively perform. The funding, resources and systems must be put in place to deliver on that mandate. Safety leadership in a disaggregated agency environment involving some of the most powerful (e.g. Police) and the most resourced (e.g. highways) agencies in government is not straightforward. Coordination can be difficult and time consuming. To meet these challenges, it is clear that the lead agency must be outward looking at all times, constantly communicating with partners inside and outside of government to maximise the stakeholders’ delivery of safety services. RSLAs need to set themselves up to ensure their own internal structures place sufficient weight and importance on these outward looking functions, not just those that are easily defined and controlled internally, such as motor vehicle regulation for example. 5. How do these agencies work out the “good practice” with respect to governance, funding and responsibilities to deliver their mandate? There is some dependence on development partners for good practice, and not much transfer of good practice to stakeholders, which is problematic. Lead agencies are not routinely adopting good practice, but there are good examples. One important good practice is the evidence of sharing 52 between countries, particularly in West Africa where the professional links within the West African Road Safety Organisation continue to influence improvements across countries. 6. What strategic appropriate reform measures should be adopted to improve the effectiveness of lead agencies in low-and middle-income countries? Six lessons have been identified from this study: 1. Institutional mandate: The safety mandate is important to establish at an early point, and needs to be renewed. It must be continually nourished and never forgotten. 2. Results focus: Strategy development and implementation processes are a critical means of a lead agency bringing something to the table, establishing their credibility and delivering improved safety. 3. Coordination: Establishing and maintaining stakeholder engagement processes is time consuming and difficult, but essential to the long-term value which the RSLA can deliver. 4. Funding: Sustainable funding sources for the RSLA and for the safety programs being delivered by other MDAs need to be considered as a critical governance and institutional issue. 5. Monitoring and evaluation: Direct involvement in road safety data management is important for RSLAs to deliver their wider leadership role. 6. Capacity building: Capacity building is a critical and ongoing consideration as the RSLA is established, grows and leads the national road safety effort. These lessons are discussed further in Section 5, and recommendations made. 53 5 LESSONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS This study was undertaken to learn from the current state of road safety lead agencies in Africa and to identify opportunities to strengthen the institutional response to the African road safety crisis. Each RSLA is encouraged to use the results of the study to reflect on its own situation and, in concert with national stakeholders and development partners, carefully consider the next best steps at a country level, particularly given the constraints they are each likely to face: • A poor economic environment in the region from which to support road safety lead agency initiatives • A constant struggle to generate and maintain political will and commitment to major safety reform • Insufficient and unstable funding for RSLAs in the region • Competition against other pressing social and environmental issues. Six lessons were drawn from this study, and recommendations made. The focus of the lessons and recommendations is on countries and RSLAs, and are relevant for all their development partners as well. It is therefore also recommended that development partners: • Undertake a follow up study of lead agencies in Africa in the middle of the Second Decade of Action on Road Safety 2021-2030 • Initiate the preparation of a manual for road safety lead agencies, drawing upon the findings of this study and provide direct support for RSLAs in Africa to lift their performance. Lesson 1: Institutional mandate The safety mandate is important to establish at an early point, and needs to be renewed. It must be continually nourished and never forgotten. The task of leading road safety through a dedicated government entity is not a recent development in Africa. The study shows that RSLAs operate under different legal mandates and that there is a trend in Africa towards legally establishing a road safety agency with financial and organizational autonomy. Important institutional examples in this study are in Morocco, Cote D’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa. They each face issues, but they are each in a position to capitalize on safety opportunities. It is important to recognise that performance cannot be separated from the overall mandate of the agency, the strength of that mandate in law, and the way in which that mandate is maintained over time. RSLA leadership can be effective in nourishing that mandate through their own attributes and engagement with stakeholders, but systemic and institutional responses are needed for a sustained response to the road traffic injury crisis in Africa. It is therefore encouraging to note the attention given to road safety governance and institutional issues in a number of countries studied. Inter-agency bodies are being established such as the National Road Safety Advisory Council in Nigeria, agencies or functions are being established such as the Office of Road Safety in Chad and the National Road Safety Agency in Morocco, and existing institutions have been or are in the process of being strengthened such as in Ghana and Mali. The legal mandate for the institution should clearly outline: 54 • the lead agency responsibilities in relation to: o the institutional management functions described in this report o the safety responsibilities of other government institutions • the inter-agency governance arrangements inside government for overseeing road safety strategy development, implementation and review • the accountability arrangements for funding, delivering and evaluating road safety programs • expectations regarding engagement with stakeholders outside government in the pursuit of national road safety goals. Recommendation 1 It is recommended that countries review and if necessary, enhance the legislative mandate of the lead agency, the wider inter-agency governance systems for road safety, and the engagement with stakeholders outside government, in pursuit of national road safety goals. It is also recommended that countries: R1.1: Review what aspects of their legal mandate can be strengthened and how that stronger mandate could be used to advance national road safety goals R 1.2: Prepare and convene a stakeholder roundtable to discuss road safety mandate and governance arrangements, seeking support from international development partners to provide external perspective on this R1.2: Provide advice to government on the legal mandate and governance issues related to the achievement of national road safety goals, including specific strengthening proposals. Participant countries in this study can refer to the summary assessment found in Appendix 3 of the relative strength of their existing mandates across the different road safety institutional management functions. Lesson 2: Results focus Strategy development and implementation processes are a critical means of a lead agency bringing something to the table, establishing their credibility and delivering improved safety. Most RSLAs have a national road safety strategy or action plan that is inspired by and oriented to global targets and agreements such as the Sustainable Development Goals, UN Decade of Action and the African Road Safety Action Plan. However, the final results on deaths and serious injuries do not match the ambition, and four RSLAs were not working to a national strategy or action plan (Kenya, Egypt, Ethiopia and Uganda) which makes it more difficult to deliver on their road safety mandate. The quality of strategy documents seems to depend on who has initiated the project. Strategies prepared with foreign inputs generally appear stronger than ones developed solely with local inputs but may include measures unsuitable to the local context. Whatever the basis of the strategy, RSLAs need to ensure sustained investment in monitoring and evaluation activity in order to track progress at a national level. Without this, interventions to achieve fatality and serious injury targets will continue to be compromised. Many road safety related laws and regulations are outdated, and compliance with existing safety standards is a major challenge intensified by a lack of monitoring- evaluation-performance data. Significant opportunities exist in generating safer roads, vehicles, 55 users and improved post-crash response – these need to be specified in a strategic document and evidence-based plans put in place and delivered. Good national road safety strategies focus on the vital few issues that will be tackled and incorporate the following essential elements: • An ultimate vision, which provides purpose, meaning, and a rallying point for all stakeholders to remind them of what is being sought • A set of performance targets, which go beyond headline injury numbers and establish a performance management framework, that all activity needs to be oriented towards • Clearly defined strategic directions, which evidence suggests have a strong likelihood of achieving the safety performance targets that have been set • Ongoing implementation arrangements, including governance and coordination arrangements, planning and funding, and monitoring and evaluation activities. • High-value actions, clearly described, with assigned agency responsibility, timeframe and a funding system which supports delivery. Recommendation 2 It is recommended that countries review alignment with good practice road safety strategies and plans and ensure that core interventions (the safety quality of the road, of vehicles, of users and of post-crash response) are appropriately applied to the local context – special consideration is required of the political and cultural context in each country, the economic and commercial factors at play, the importance of compliance with safety standards, and appropriate licensing arrangements for informal/public transport It is also recommended that countries: R2.1: Continue to develop/renew/update national road safety strategies (recommended as ten years duration, or with 2030 global target date) and action plans (recommended as at 2-4 years duration) which are in line with the safe system approach, the global plan for the second decade of action on road safety and the local context R2.2: Develop/review/update reports on the national impact of road crashes and the social costs of crashes to support safety focused decision-making mechanisms and enable comparison with other social, economic and environmental issues R2.3: Develop a national road safety performance management framework and associated monitoring and evaluation system which links interventions to achievement of intermediate road safety performance targets, and interim fatality and serious injury reduction targets R2.4: Provide necessary technical assistance and support for stakeholders (both internal and external to government) to develop safety performance measures for their own activities which are linked to the national road safety strategy. Given the critical role of good practice legislation and enforcement in road safety strategies, it is also recommended that lead agencies give particular consideration to: R2.5: Revising speed limits to simplify them, align them with the safe speed thresholds required to eliminate serious road traffic injury, and introduce legislation which facilitates setting and enforcing safe speed limits 56 R2.6: Reviewing existing regulations relating to drink driving, speeding, restraint and motor cycle helmet use, and mobile phone use in line with global norms promoted by the World Health Organisation, and the enforcement of these behavioural standards R2.7 Reviewing fines and penalties for violations of key safety standards, modify them to reflect the associated risk of death and serious injury, and develop and implement administrative justice systems which assist in deterring unsafe behaviours R2.8: Reviewing existing regulations relating to the safety of motor vehicles including the safety standards required for motor vehicles entering the national fleet, periodic inspection to maintain safety standards, and enforcement of these vehicle safety standards. Lesson 3: Coordination Establishing and maintaining stakeholder engagement processes is time consuming and difficult, but essential to the long-term value which the RSLA can deliver. RSLAs which are based in government departments appear to be more susceptible to weaker coordination and delivery mechanisms for road safety – they can be effective but it may be harder. There is weak stakeholder engagement especially between RSLAs and non-state actors. Non-state actors broaden engagement and bring synergy in road safety interventions and yet they are not well integrated in road safety governance. Coordination is better among MDAs, but any overlapping responsibilities without efficient coordination undermine RSLA’s performance There appears to be a disconnect between government and non-government interests. RSLAs generally appear to work effectively with MDAs, but much better connections need to be made with road safety interests outside of government. Better opportunities need to be found for the private sector and for community service organisations to become a key part of the national road safety effort. Organisations outside government are making safety part of their business, and represent a critical constituency for the RSLA, as they seek to increase understanding of road safety with the community, and acceptance and support for new safety policies and investments. Recommendation 3 It is recommended that countries stengthen road safety governance arrangements to ensure that non-state actors in academic, business and community sectors are engaged in developing and implementing road safety strategy and can better align their own safety interests and activities to the directions being pursued at a national level. It is also recommended that countries: R3.1: Review the current status of arrangements with all stakeholders in society (both inside and outside government) and develop an initial priority list to engage more stakeholders R3.2: Review the extent to which national, regional and local government and non- government actors are incorporated into coordination arrangements, and strengthen such arrangements as necessary R3.3: Establish working groups on technical or policy issues to draw upon technical expertise and stakeholder support for developing and implementing significant new road safety reforms R3.4: Ensure that all stakeholder’s activities are linked to the overall road safety strategy. 57 Lesson 4: Funding Sustainable funding sources for the RSLA and for the safety programs being delivered by other MDAs need to be considered as a critical governance and institutional issue. Countries are seeking technical assistance from multilateral banks and foreign donors. However, the responsibilities swing both ways. Funding is largely provided by national treasuries and responsible ministries. Nine countries have road funds but only Morocco had sufficient budget for 2020/2021. A critical role for the lead agency is to lead analysis and discussion on what significant additional safety investments are required, how they will be funded, and how they will be managed. Large externally funded safety projects can play an essential role in making infrastructure safe, in developing more sustainable and safe public transport systems, in providing quicker and better emergency response to crashes. When those projects stop however, the work carries on. Ongoing, internal sources of revenue for safety are critical. This means making the economic safety case for portions of fuel levies and insurance premiums. It also means that regulatory charges relating to transport operators, motor vehicles and drivers at least meet the cost of delivering safe regulatory systems. In doing so, RSLAs must also have the capacity to estimate their real investment needs and the safety investment needs of the sector as a whole. Recommendation 4 It is recommended that countries pursue more sustainable funding sources and greater priority for safety investments, which are needed to reduce the significant funding gap reported by almost all RSLAs, and for the wider sector (in road infrastructure, vehicle regulation, post-crash services etc.) to meet the national road safety targets which have been set. It is also recommended that countries: R4.1: Identify the economic cost of road traffic crashes, and the financial and human resources required to establish or the RSLA and to implement the national road safety strategy / action plan across all government agencies. R4.2: Identify potential funding sources for road safety focusing on internal government regulated sources – such as fuel levies, insurance premiums, vehicle/driver regulatory fees, traffic fines, and major infrastructure investment or international development programmes – and initiate a feasibility study for a national road safety fund to be managed by the lead agency R4.3: Develop business cases, with sustainable funding sources, for investment in strengthening the RSLA, and delivering more and better interventions – for example, road safety management capacity building, road crash data systems and associated evaluation and research activity, infrastructure safety investments, investments in driver and vehicle regulation and enforcement, and post-crash response. Lesson 5: Monitoring and evaluation Direct involvement in road safety data management is important for RSLAs to deliver their wider leadership role. Research findings reveal poor road safety data systems. Most RSLAs consider death and injury reporting to be inaccurate, and rated the compilation and dissemination of national road safety statistics as poor. Some RSLAs are taking substantial steps to address issues of data and 58 information systems, and the first step in this is to fully recognise the scale of the data problem. Current data systems mean that the public can be unintentionally misled about the shocking impact of unsafe road traffic systems on the community. Good data systems require sustained and ongoing operational expenditure to be maintained, usually for some years after initial capital expenditure is made. Recommendation 5 It is recommended that countries strengthen RSLA capacity to effectively collect and manage road safety data, and develop a reliable evaluation and monitoring system to promote safety performance indicators – while privacy controls are essential, all government stakeholders need to share data, and performance data needs to be regularly published. It is also recommended that countries: R5.1: Develop and operationalize an electronic national road crash database to effectively collect and manage road safety data in line with good practice and the Africa Road Safety Observatory (ARSO) requirements, and including inter-agency coordination mechanisms for collecting data, and for drawing information from various sources such as infrastructure, vehicle registration and driving license R5.2: Develop and operationalize mechanisms for sharing data across relevant MDAs and research organizations for the purpose of developing, implementing and evaluating the most effective countermeasures R5.3: Support and promote national and regional road safety observatories (such as ARSO) to support the capture of standardized road safety data and reporting, contribute to evidence-based road safety efforts, set appropriate performance measures and improve accountability of all road safety stakeholders R5.4: Develop baseline measures for key risk factors (such as iRAP safety star ratings, traffic speed, drink driving etc), an annual monitoring and evaluation programme to monitor progress towards targets, and the regular publication of road safety performance reports. Lesson 6: Capacity building Capacity building is a critical and ongoing consideration as the RSLA is established, grows and leads the national road safety effort. At one level, a shortfall is observed between the number of positions established in RSLAs and the number of people actually employed – Ghana’s National Road Safety Authority, for example, employs only one third of the technical staff in its establishment. The agencies are partially closing the gap using local consultants, but a basic lack of financial resources is impacting on human resources, and the human resource needs are great. Even if they are not specifically qualified in each discipline, RSLAs need to be able to attract leaders capable of engaging at the highest levels on critical safety issues related to: law and public policy; roads and traffic engineering; mechanical engineering; enforcement and behaviour change; research and evaluation; funding and investment. Significant gaps remain also in relation to system resources such as data management. Where significant safety investments are being made in countries, it is critical that consideration is given to how the investment will directly strengthen the RSLA leadership of road safety, and the wider national road safety management system within which all stakeholders work. The 59 stakeholder focus groups conducted as part of this study reinforced the considerable support and intense interest amongst stakeholders in tackling the road traffic injury crisis sweeping Africa. Funding must focus on the much more difficult and intangible capacity building for road safety as much as, if not more than, on delivering projects which can be touched or seen. Recommendation 6 It is recommended that countries look for opportunities to systematically strengthen capacity building in local and national safety expertise, focusing on the quality of human resources and their technical expertise, and on the capacity of the national road safety management system rather than the numbers of staff. It is also recommended that countries: R6.1: Develop, adopt and implement a funded national road safety capacity building program, involving road safety governance and leadership programmes for key government agencies, technical education programmes, and learning by doing processes to progressively strengthen key road safety policies and programmes R6.2: Develop and deliver road traffic safety courses for all people working in road safety, aligned with their professional responsibilities R6.3: Conduct special training for management and operation of databases including statistical analysis, and ongoing training for collecting good quality road safety data R6.4: Strengthen road safety technical guidelines and develop personnel with a higher level of understanding and skills associated with good practice in road safety engineering and policing. R6.5: In collaboration between RSLA, Ministries, universities and other research institutions, identify gaps in road safety education (including post-graduate) and research, develop & execute a research agenda, and explore opportunities to establish a formal national road safety research center linked to ARSO. R6.7: Establish and adopt a “knowledge transfer” strategy that provides new information and research to all agencies, partners and stakeholders. 60 References African Development Bank (2013). Road safety in Africa: Assessment of progresses and challenges in road safety management system. African Development Bank Group. Bajia, K.N; Mitullah, W.V, and Azzouzi, M. 2021. Literature Review on Road Safety Lead Agencies in Africa. World Bank, Internal Document, Washington DC Brushett, S. (2005). Management and financing of road transport infrastructure in Africa. Africa Transport Policy Program. Cardoso, J. L., Meta, E., Quigley, C., Welsh, R., & Talbot, R. (2018). Analysis of good practices in Europe and Africa (SaferAfrica; D7.1). Muhlrad, N, Gitelman V, Buttler I. (2011) Road safety management investigation model and questionnaire, Deliverable 1.2 of the EC FP7 project DaCoTA. Peden, M., Scurfield Richard, Sleet David, Mohan Dinesh, Hyder A. A., Jarawan Eva, & Mathers Colin (Eds.). (2004). World report on road traffic injury prevention. WHO. Pinard, M.I. (2012). Progress on Commercialized Road Management. Working Paper 92, Africa Transport Policy Program. Small, M., & Runji, J. (2014). Managing road safety in Africa: A framework for national lead agencies (Working paper No. 101). Africa Transport Policy Program. UNECA (2011). Decade of action for road safety: 2011-2020 African action plan (p. 17). United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. WHO (2013). Global status report on road safety 2013: Supporting a decade of action. World Health Organization. WHO (2016). Road safety in the African region 2015. WHO (2018). Global Status Report on Road Safety 2018. 61 Appendix 1: RSLA Questionnaire Introduction The African Development Bank and the World Bank have commissioned a study of fifteen African countries. The overall research objective of the study is to assess the organizational performance of road safety lead agencies (RSLA) in Africa in order to generate knowledge on the strengths and weaknesses of road safety institutions, and identify possible interventions to improve performance. The questionnaire is focused on organizations which are designated as the RSLA in each country. In cases where the RSLA cannot fully respond to some questions, the questions can be directed by the RSLA to the appropriate government department or agency. An ideal method of responding to the instrument is to have a roundtable involving all relevant departments of the RSLA and any other relevant stakeholder(s). 1. Institutional Information of the RSLA These questions refer to the agency which is designated as the government agency responsible for leading the national road safety effort. Name of Country: Name of Organisation: Year of establishment: Year operations effectively began: Website: Contact Person: Position: Email: Telephone No: 2. Legal framework of the RSLA These questions refer to the agency which is designated as the government agency responsible for leading the national road safety effort. 2.1 Is the RSLA established under a specific law? Yes/No (Please provide a link or soft copy if possible) 2.2 If yes, list the functions of the RSLA specified under law: a) b) c) d) … 2.3 Please also list any other function of the RSLA not specified under law: a) b) 2.4 If no, is there a road safety policy document that guides the RSLA’s operations? Yes/No (Please provide a link or soft copy if possible) 2.5 If yes, what are the stated objectives of the road safety policy document which are relevant to the RSLA? a) b) c) d) … 2.6 Specify the institutional form of the RSLA a) A government department 62 b) A stand-alone autonomous agency c) A council with a professional secretariat d) Other (Please specify the legal form of the RSLA and any supervising organization) 3. Organisation of the RSLA 3.1 Please list the departments/units of the RSLA, their functions, staff and budget: • Name of Unit • Unit Functions • • Technical • Support Staff Annual Staff budget* • 1 • • • • • 2 • • • • • 3 • • • • • 4 • • • • • 5 • • • • • 6 • • • • * most recent annual figure to illustrate breakdown of budget across RSLA functions 3.2 Which of these departments/units is responsible for leading the national road safety effort? 3.3 Aside from the National Office, are there any regional or local offices? Yes/No 3.4 If yes, specify the number of regional and local offices (a) Regional: (b) Local: 3.5 How many technical staff are in regional or local offices? (c) Regional: (d) Local: 4. National inter-agency body These questions refer to an inter-agency body (such as a National Road Safety Committee) which provides advice to government and coordinates national planning and activity across stakeholders 4.1 Is there a body which acts as a national inter-agency body for road safety? Yes/No 4.2 If yes: (a) Is it established under law? Yes/No (Please provide a link or soft copy if possible) (b) Does it have a terms of reference? Yes/No (Please provide a link or soft copy if possible) (c) What is the relationship of the national inter-agency body with the RSLA? For example, does the RSLA provide administrative and technical secretariat services? 4.3 Please specify the formal inter-agency bodies for road safety in your country, whether they are national or regional or technical in nature, established under law, and have been operationalised. Please also rate their effectiveness (using a scale of 1 for least effective and 5 for most effective). • Formal Inter- • National? • Established under • Real meeting • Operational? • Level of agency Bodies Regional? law? Yes/No frequency? Yes/No effectiveness Technical? • • 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 5 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 5. Coordination These questions relate to the role of the RSLA in coordinating various government and non-government stakeholders 5.1 Does the law provide the RSLA with a coordination mandate for all government and non-government stakeholders in order to achieve road safety goals? Yes/No. 63 5.2 Please explain how the RSLA works with other government agencies (such as transport, highways, police, health and education agencies) to ensure a coordinated government response to the following: (a) Safe roads (b) User safety (c) Safe vehicles (d) Post-crash (e) Overall implementation of national road safety strategy (f) Overall achievement of national road safety targets 5.3 Is there an agreed work programme for road safety among stakeholders? Yes/No 5.4 Do other government agencies include road safety objectives in their strategies and plans? Yes/No 5.5 Please rate the effectiveness of RSLA coordination with the following stakeholders to help achieve national road safety goals (using a scale of 1 for least effective and 5 for most effective) Stakeholders helping achieve national road safety goals 1 2 3 4 5 High level political offices (Presidency, Parliament, Local governments) Ministry of Transport Ministry of Interior (including Police) Regional/Local/City governments Ministry of Health (including hospitals) Traffic Police Department Civil society organisations working on road safety Other community or private sector organisations Development partners supporting road safety efforts 6. Strategy & Planning 6.1 Is there a national road safety strategy or action plan? Yes/No 6.2 If yes, is it aligned with United Nations or African Union frameworks, such as: (a) Sustainable Development Goals Yes/No (b) UN Decade of Action Yes/No (c) African Road Safety Action Plan Yes/No 6.3 Does the national road safety strategy or action plan have a vision for road safety? Yes/No (a) If yes, please specify 6.4 Have any specific targets been set in the national road safety strategy or action plan? Yes/No 6.5 If yes: (a) Do these targets relate to deaths, injuries or hospitalisations? Yes/No Please specify … (b) Do these targets relate to infrastructure, vehicle, user safety or post-crash related intermediate and final outcome targets? Yes/No Please specify … (c) Do these targets relate to delivery of road safety projects/programs? Yes/No Please specify … (d) Is responsibility for these targets assigned to different agencies? Yes/No If yes, how does the RSLA monitor delivery of actions by different agencies? 6.6 What year was this strategy or action plan approved by Government? 6.7 Was funding for this strategy or action plan also approved by Government? Yes/No 6.8 Has implementation of the strategy or action plan been evaluated? Yes/No 6.9 How does the RSLA monitor implementation of the strategy or action plan? 6.10 Does the RSLA have its own organizational strategy or activity plan? Yes/No (Please provide a link or soft copy if possible) 64 6.11 Does the RSLA strategy or plan refer to: (a) The national road safety or action plan? Yes/No (b) A vision or targets for road safety? Yes/No (c) The need for partnerships or coordination with other government and non-government stakeholders? Yes/No 6.12 Who developed the RSLA’s strategic plan and/or business plan? (Please select from list below) (a) Internal RSLA team (b) Internal team supported by local consultants (c) Internal team supported by foreign consultants (d) Local Consultants (e) Foreign consultants (f) Other, please specify: 6.13 Does the LRSA produce an annual activity report? Yes/No (Please provide the a link or soft copy) 7. Legislation 7.1 Does the RSLA periodically review legislation, rules and standards against best practices, and recommendations for improvement? Yes/No 7.2 If yes, please specify how many reviews have been made during the last six years and areas of focus: • Areas of Review • Relevant instruments (Act, Regulations, • No. Standards, Other) • Road user behaviors (eg, speeding, drink driving, use • • of helmets/seatbelts/mobile phones), enforcement, information, education, campaigns • Driver licensing (testing/issue/regulation), and • • commercial transport safety regulation • Vehicle safety (eg, safety regulations for importing or • • constructing vehicles, or for vehicle roadworthiness/registration) • Infrastructure safety (eg requirements for road agency• • to provide safe roads, or undertake road safety inspections and audits) • Road safety management (eg, establishment of lead • • agency, preparation of strategies or plans, road safety funding) • Post-crash care (eg, good Samaritan laws, injury • • insurance schemes) 8. Data These questions relate to data which is required for efficient monitoring, evaluation and performance management 8.1 Please explain how data is collected and shared with key stakeholders and the general public, including the role of the RSLA in this. 8.2 Which type of data is gathered, monitored and shared across different agencies? Specify agency responsible for gathering data and whether data is shared: 65 Type of data collected & shared Data Collected Agency Responsible Data Shared (Yes/No) (mark x if no agency (Yes/No) responsible) Road crash deaths Road crash injuries Hospitalised road crash victims Compliance with speed limit Compliance with seat belt law Compliance with drink driving law Compliance with motorcycle helmet law Compliance with mobile phone law Compliance with child restraint law Other, specify 8.3 Please provide officially registered/recorded data as follows: 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 Road crash deaths Road crash injuries 8.4 Does the RSLA produce a periodic road crash record/analysis report, or seek the responsible agency to produce one for it? Yes/No If yes, please provide a link or a soft copy. 8.5 What is the official definition of a road death? (a) Died within 30 days of the road crash (b) Other, please specify: 8.6 If the RSLA is not responsible for collecting data, does the agency have any role in specifying the type of data being collected? Yes/No 8.7 Does the RSLA consider death and injury reporting in the country accurate? Yes/No 8.8 If no, what actions are being taken by the RSLA to improve death and injury reporting? 8.9 Is there consideration of a centralized police and hospital data system coordinated by the RSLA? Yes/No 8.10 Does the RSLA regularly analyse data to understand the contributory factors, causes, and consequences of road traffic deaths and injuries, in order to improve strategies and interventions? Yes/No 8.11 How does the RSLA use the data generated to improve its mandated road safety functions? 9. Monitoring and evaluation These questions relate to key performance indicators and related targets which have been set for performance management purposes 9.1 Please list the indicators or targets which have been set either by the RSLA internally, or as part of a national strategy or action plan: Results Hierarchy Indicators Targets Final safety outcomes Deaths Serious Injuries Hospitalisations Economic cost of crashes Roads at least 3 star safety rated 66 Results Hierarchy Indicators Targets Safety performance Reduction of drivers exceeding speed limit outcomes Reduction of drivers above drink limit BAC Reduction of passengers not wearing seat belts Reduction of motorcyclists not wearing helmets Increase of child restraint usage Institutional Please specify – for example: delivery/outputs • Fines issued • Hazardous locations treated • Speed limits reduced 9.2 Are all the indicators and/or targets listed above referenced in the national strategy/plan or the RSLA’s organisational strategy/plan? Yes/No 9.3 Does the RSLA periodically evaluate road safety interventions, in order to justify and/or adjust road safety programmes and strategies? Yes/No 9.4 If yes, (a) What interventions have been planned and implemented during the last five years? (b) Please list the most recent evaluations conducted (within the last five years) … (c) Please indicate who conducted the evaluation (eg internal staff local/foreign consultants etc) (d) Please indicate who paid for the evaluation (eg, RSLA, development partner, other) 10. Funding 10.1 Please indicate the revenue sources to fund the RSLA budget (a) National budget Yes/No (b) Fuel levy Yes/No (c) Insurance levy Yes/No (d) Fees and charges Yes/No (e) Fines Yes/No (f) Other, please specify: 10.2 Please indicate the institutional sources to fund the RSLA budget (a) National Treasury Yes/No (b) Responsible Ministry Yes/No (c) National road fund Yes/No (d) Other, please specify: 10.3 Please specify the amount allocated to the RSLA for road safety activity in: (a) 2018/2019: (b) 2019/2020: (c) 2020/2021: 10.4 Is the RSLA annual budget in 2020/2021 sufficient to deliver mandated functions? Yes/No 10.5 If no, what proportion of the required resources does the budget comprise? (a) Less than 50 percent (b) 50 – 75 percent (c) 75 – 95 percent 10.6 Is there a National Road Safety Fund, or a specific road safety component of a Road Fund if any, which can be used to fund road safety activity by the RSLA, or stakeholders? Yes/No 67 10.7 If yes, please specify the amount allocated by this fund in. (a) 2018/2019: (b) 2019/2020: (c) 2020/2021: 10.8 What types of institutions/funders directly or indirectly finance road safety projects/studies in your country? (a) Private sector: please estimate the percentage (b) Multilateral Development Banks: please estimate the percentage 10.9 Please rank funding priorities (from 1 to 10), and provide a justification. Activity Priority Ranking (1–10) Justification Coordination of activities and stakeholders Strategy and planning Review of laws, policies and standards Monitoring, evaluation and reporting Data collection and analysis Personnel and capacity building Funding and investment bids Road safety advocacy and information Enforcement of laws and standards Infrastructure improvement Post-crash response activity 11. Human Resources 11.1 Do your technical staff have university qualifications in the following disciplines? (a) Law or public policy Yes/No (b) Research or evaluation Yes/No (c) Roads or traffic engineering Yes/No (d) Mechanical engineers Yes/No (e) Marketing or education Yes/No (f) Other, please specify 11.2 Is there is a shortfall between establishment staff and employed staff? Yes/No If so, please specify the number 11.3 If so, how does the agency fulfill its mandate and achieve targets? (a) Mandate and targets only partially fulfilled (b) Use of consultants paid by development partners (c) Use of local consultants paid by the RSLA (d) Outsourcing to other stakeholders (e) Engagement of interns and volunteers to support some tasks (f) Other, please specify 11.4 Is there a plan to ensure that all established staff positions in the LRSA are filled? Yes/No 11.5 What issues exist in employing technical staff as stated in the establishment? (a) National budget constraints (b) Competition for scarce resources by different road safety agencies (c) Lack of commitment to road safety goals by high level decision makers (d) Ineffective lobbying at national level for resources by the RSLA (e) Inefficient mobilization of internal and external resources by the RSLA (f) Lack of training manpower in road safety (g) Other, please specify 68 12. RSLA Performance 12.1 Score the following constraining factors affecting performance of RSLAs (1 for least problematic to 5 for most problematic) Constraining factors 1 2 3 4 5 Lack of legal empowerment of RSLA Lack of up to date road safety legislation Funding constraints Governance constraints – eg, inter-agency relations System constraints – eg, management, infrastructure, regulation Technical constraints – lack of knowledge Technical constraints – lack of professional staff Technical constraints – lack of data Ineffective enforcement of regulations Other, specify 12.2 Score the performance of the RSLA on the following functions (1 for least positive to 5 for most positive) Performance of functions 1 2 3 4 5 Marshalling all road safety efforts towards achieving road safety results Coordinating road safety decision making across central government Coordinating road safety activities of various government agencies Coordinating road safety activities across different levels of government (national, regional and local) Coordinating road safety activities between government and other stakeholders Pursuing inclusive road safety legislative framework Advocating for and safeguarding road safety funding across government Managing resource allocation of available road safety funding Promoting effective road safety activities by government and other stakeholders Promoting road safety within the community Systematic monitoring, evaluation and reporting of road safety performance Establishing and supporting data systems that are used to monitor progress Compilation and dissemination of national road safety statistics Strategic road safety research and knowledge transfer Other, specify 69 Appendix 2: Stakeholder Focus Group Checklist Introduction The African Development Bank and the World Bank have commissioned a study of fifteen African countries. The overall research objective of the study is to assess the organizational performance of road safety lead agencies (RSLA) in Africa in order to generate knowledge on the strengths and weaknesses of road safety institutions, and identify possible interventions to improve performance. The study is using two main methods of primary information gathering – a questionnaire directed to RSLAs, and focus group discussions (FGDs) for road safety stakeholders in each of the fifteen countries. The FGDs are aimed at bringing together road safety stakeholders to discuss issues relating to road safety, in particular coordination and governance of road safety activities in each country by the RSLA. Through FGD some issues raised in a questionnaire dedicated to the RSLA are given deeper reflections by key road safety stakeholders. The discussion should be free with every participant contributing to issues of discussion. Participants should give consent for recording and taking of pictures before proceedings begin, which will enhance preparation of discussion notes. 1. Familiarity with road safety issues 1.1 Participants’ general views on status of road safety in country • Views on crashes, injuries, hospitalization and death • Post-crash handling • Infrastructure, vehicle and user safety • Legislation and enforcement of regulations 2. National Road Safety Strategy and Targets 2.1 Stakeholders’ awareness of the national road safety strategy and targets • Sources of information, actions at stakeholder levels towards implementation of strategy and targets • Insights on the feasibility of road safety strategy and targets • Stakeholder engagement with RSLA and other government agencies implementing strategy and targets 2.2 Responsiveness of stakeholders and government agencies towards s implementation of the strategy and achievement of targets • Discuss how stakeholders are engaged, and how overall coordination of actors is done 3. Engagement with road safety agencies (probe the following) 3.1 Knowledge of road safety activities of various government agencies 3.2 Coordination among various government agencies 3.3 Collaboration of road safety agencies with other road safety stakeholders 3.4 Presence of an inter-agency body for road safety, such as a National Road Safety Council, involving various government agencies 3.5 Profile and effectiveness of the inter-agency body for road safety 70 4. Stakeholder engagement with RSLA (probe the following) 4.1 Knowledge of the country’s RSLA and its responsibilities 4.2 Assess how stakeholders’ support the RSLA in achieving national road safety goals 4.3 Level of engagement of stakeholders in RSLA activities (probe whether as participants, technical, financier, and campaign agents among others) • Development or delivery of strategies and plans • Monitoring and evaluation • Public road safety campaigns 5. Coordination of road safety actors by RSLA 5.1 Discuss coordination of road safety actors by the RSLA at three levels • National (probe the role of RSLA in coordination of different government agencies (Ministries of transport, infrastructure, health, education, police, internal affairs e.t.c) involved in road safety and general performance) • Regional (probe whether there are RSLA regional offices, the level of coordination (knowing who the actors are, what they their activities on road safety and outcome of their road safety activities) of stakeholders and general performance of RSLA) • Local (probe whether there are RSLA local offices, the general coordination (knowing who the actors, what they are doing on road safety and outcome of their road safety activities) of stakeholders and general performance of RSLA in coordination of actors) 5.2 Probe overall coordination by the RSLA in respect to planning, supervision, allocation of responsibilities, programmes, budget allocations in the following areas: • Infrastructure safety • Vehicle safety • Road crash data recording (police, hospital) • Speeding • Drink driving • Seat belts • Motor cycle helmets • Mobile phone use • Child restraints • Driver training, testing and licensing • Police enforcement • Post-crash response 5.3 Probe how conflicts and disputes of coordination are resolved by the RSLA 5.4 Probe experiences and lessons of coordination by RSLA from the perspectives of the stakeholders 6. Road safety information data gathering and sharing 6.1 Probe whether stakeholders’ activities are informed by data and knowledge based information 71 6.2 Probe use of data to inform road safety activities of stakeholders, highlighting: • Sources of data (including data from RSLA and elsewhere) • Ease of access (websites, available but not compiled and analyzed, physical visit to data centers), • Adequacy of available data • Gaps in data (probe actual gaps and how stakeholders fill the gap) 7. Road Safety Funding and Technical Support 7.1 Probe sources of funding for road safety in general and for the RSLA 7.2 Probe role of development partners in funding and technical support to RSLA 7.3 Probe role of CSOs in technical support and road safety campaigns organized by RSLA 7.4 Probe the key areas stakeholders think should be prioritized for road safety funding by the RSLA 8. Overall assessment of RSLA performance 8.2 Coordination of road safety activities among stakeholders, including development partners 8.3 Coordination of government ministries and agencies 8.4 Overall leadership of road safety towards achieving national road safety goals 8.5 Major road safety issues which the RSLA should focus on 9. Questions and any further sharing on the role of RSLA in country 72 Appendix 3: Legal Mandates for Road Safety Lead Agencies National road safety lead agencies can only be expected to deliver against the legal mandate which they work under. Based on the data collected and provided, an assessment was made of the strength of that mandate against the functions of a national lead agency as used in the study. This assessment relates to the legislative provisions which the RSLA is working to, and not to performance against those provisions. It does not relate to other functions performed by the RSLA, most commonly motor vehicle regulation. Countries are encouraged to consider the strength of the mandate provided to the RSLA across the seven road safety institutional management functions. Lead Agency Function Weak Mandate Moderate Mandate Strong Mandate Results Focus No legislative reference to overall Specific legislative reference to overall Specific legislative reference to overall leadership of road safety, strategy and leadership of road safety, strategy and leadership of road safety, strategy and planning and reduction in road trauma planning and reduction in road trauma planning and reduction in road trauma, demonstrably acted upon and/or referenced by stakeholders Coordination No legislative reference to safety Specific legislative reference to safety Specific legislative reference to safety coordination responsibilities and/or inter- coordination responsibilities and/or inter- coordination responsibilities, demonstrably agency governing body agency governing body acted upon and/or referenced by stakeholders Legislation No legislative reference to responsibilities Specific legislative reference to Specific legislative reference to legislation for conducting reviews of legislation responsibilities for conducting reviews of responsibilities, demonstrably acted upon affecting road safety outcomes legislation affecting road safety outcomes and/or referenced by stakeholders Funding No legislative reference to establishment or Specific legislative reference to Specific legislative reference to funding management of government safety budgets establishment or management of government responsibilities, demonstrably acted upon safety budgets and/or referenced by stakeholders Promotion No legislative reference to road safety Specific legislative reference to road safety Specific legislative reference to promotion advocacy or promotion of safety as major advocacy or promotion of as major societal responsibilities, demonstrably acted upon societal issue issue and/or referenced by stakeholders Monitoring & Evaluation No legislative reference to responsibilities Specific legislative reference to Specific legislative reference to monitoring for crash/injury data, or monitoring responsibilities for crash/injury data, or and evaluation responsibilities, government delivery and performance monitoring government delivery and demonstrably acted upon and/or referenced performance by stakeholders Research & Development No legislative reference to responsibilities Specific legislative reference to Specific legislative reference to research for safety research and development studies responsibilities for safety research and and development and capacity building and/or capacity building development studies and/or capacity responsibilities, demonstrably acted upon building and/or referenced by stakeholders Country Name Year of Establishment Agency Type Functional Responsibility Inter-agency Body Road Transport Cameroon 2012 Government department Motor vehicle regulation National Road Council Directorate Overall Mandate Moderate Coordination Moderate Promotion Moderate M&E Moderate Results Focus Strong Legislation Strong Funding Weak R&D Moderate Décret No 2012/250 du 1 juin 2012 Country Name Year of Establishment Agency Type Functional Responsibility Inter-agency Body Office National de la Commission Nationale de Chad 2017 Autonomous agency Motor vehicle regulation Sécurité Routière Sécurité Routière Overall Mandate Moderate Coordination Moderate Promotion Moderate M&E Moderate Results Focus Moderate Legislation Weak Funding Weak R&D Weak Loi No 003/PR/2017 Country Name Year of Establishment Agency Type Functional Responsibility Inter-agency Body Office de Sécurité Commission Nationale de Cote d’Ivoire 1978 Autonomous agency Motor vehicle regulation Routière Sécurité Routière Overall Mandate Moderate Coordination Strong Promotion Moderate M&E Strong Results Focus Strong Legislation Weak Funding Weak R&D Moderate Décret No 78-661 du 4 aout 1978, Décret No 91-761 du 14 novembre 1991, Décret No 2017-71 du 1 février 2017 Country Name Year of Establishment Agency Type Functional Responsibility Inter-agency Body Commission Nationale de DR Congo 1978 Government department Lead agency only None la Sécurité Routière Overall Mandate Weak Coordination Moderate Promotion Weak M&E Weak Results Focus Moderate Legislation Weak Funding Weak R&D Moderate Ordonnance No 78-478 du 26 décembre 1978 Country Name Year of Establishment Agency Type Functional Responsibility Inter-agency Body National Road Safety Egypt 2007 Council None None Council Overall Mandate Weak Coordination Weak Promotion Weak M&E Weak Results Focus Weak Legislation Weak Funding Weak R&D Weak No known legal mandate Country Name Year of Establishment Agency Type Functional Responsibility Inter-agency Body National Road Traffic Council with professional Ethiopia 2011 Lead agency only None Safety Council secretariat Overall Mandate Moderate Coordination Moderate Promotion Moderate M&E Moderate Results Focus Moderate Legislation Moderate Funding Weak R&D Weak Council of Ministers Regulation No. 205/2011 Country Name Year of Establishment Agency Type Functional Responsibility Inter-agency Body Lead agency with National Road Safety Ghana 2019 Autonomous agency* investigation & None Authority compliance power Overall Mandate Strong Coordination Strong Promotion Strong M&E Strong Results Focus Strong Legislation Strong Funding Strong R&D Strong National Road Safety Authority Act, 2019 *Identified in survey as Government department Country Name Year of Establishment Agency Type Functional Responsibility Inter-agency Body National Transport and Kenya 2012 Autonomous agency* Motor vehicle regulation None Safety Authority Overall Mandate Strong Coordination Strong Promotion Strong M&E Strong Results Focus Moderate Legislation Strong Funding Moderate R&D Moderate National Transport and Safety Act 2012 *Identified in survey as Government department Country Name Year of Establishment Agency Type Functional Responsibility Inter-agency Body Agence Nationale de la National Road Safety Mali 2009 Autonomous agency Lead agency only Sécurité Routière Committee Overall Mandate Moderate Coordination Weak Promotion Moderate M&E Moderate Results Focus Weak Legislation Moderate Funding Weak R&D Moderate L’Ordonnance No 09-003/P-RM du 09 février 2009 Country Name Year of Establishment Agency Type Functional Responsibility Inter-agency Body Agence Nationale de la Motor vehicle regulator, Comité Interministeriale Morocco 2018 Autonomous agency Sécurité Routière speed enforcement de la Sécurité Routière Overall Mandate Strong Coordination Strong Promotion Strong M&E Strong Results Focus Strong Legislation Strong Funding Strong R&D Strong o Dahir N 1-18-16 du 5 journada II 1439 (22 février 2018) Country Name Year of Establishment Agency Type Functional Responsibility Inter-agency Body Instituto Nacional de Mozambique 2011 Government department Motor vehicle regulator Conselho Técnico Transportes Rodoviários Overall Mandate Moderate Coordination Moderate Promotion Moderate M&E Moderate Results Focus Moderate Legislation Strong Funding Weak R&D Moderate Decreto n.o 47/2021 de 5 de Julho Country Name Year of Establishment Agency Type Functional Responsibility Inter-agency Body National Road Safety Council with professional Namibia 1972 Lead agency only None Council secretariat Overall Mandate Moderate Coordination Strong Promotion Strong M&E Strong Results Focus Weak Legislation Weak Funding Weak R&D Strong National Road Safety Act, 1972 Country Name Year of Establishment Agency Type Functional Responsibility Inter-agency Body Traffic enforcement, Federal Road Safety National Road Safety Nigeria 1988 Autonomous agency* motor vehicle regulator, Corps Advisory Council post-crash Overall Mandate Strong Coordination Strong Promotion Strong M&E Strong Results Focus Strong Legislation Strong Funding Weak R&D Strong Federal Road Safety Commission (Establishment) Act, 2007 *Identified in survey as Government department Country Name Year of Establishment Agency Type Functional Responsibility Inter-agency Body Road Traffic Management Traffic enforcement, National Road Safety South Africa 1999 Autonomous agency Corporation motor vehicle regulation Steering Committee Overall Mandate Moderate/Strong Coordination Strong Promotion Strong M&E Strong Results Focus Strong Legislation Weak Funding Weak R&D Strong Road Traffic Management Corporation Act 1999 Country Name Year of Establishment Agency Type Functional Responsibility Inter-agency Body Observatoire National de Conseil National de Tunisia 2003 Autonomous agency Lead agency only la Sécurité Routière Sécurité Routière Overall Mandate Moderate Coordination Weak Promotion Moderate M&E Moderate Results Focus Moderate Legislation Weak Funding Moderate R&D Moderate o Décret N 2003-2666 du 29 décembre 2003 Country Name Year of Establishment Agency Type Functional Responsibility Inter-agency Body Department of Transport Uganda 2020 Government department Motor vehicle regulation None Regulation and Safety Overall Mandate Moderate Coordination Moderate Promotion Moderate M&E Moderate Results Focus Weak Legislation Strong Funding Weak R&D Moderate Traffic and Road Safety Act 1998 (Amendment) Act, 2020