Identifying barriers to the potential implementation of road safety good practices in Africa

Abstract

Africa is the worst performing Continent in road safety and year after year the situation worsens. To reverse this trend, it is essential to bear in mind that road safety problems in Africa should be preferably considered in their own context, as well as the proposed solutions to address them. Towards this direction, the objective of this paper is to present the development of the SaferAfrica Transferability Audit within the EU funded SaferAfrica project, and its pilot application to identify the barriers to the potential implementation of good road safety practices in five selected African Countries (Tunisia, Kenya, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, and South Africa). The proposed tool allows assessing whether the implementation of a given road safety intervention may face problems within one (or more) of the three domains of the Road Safety Space: Society/Culture, Economy, and Institutions. A total of 14 responses were obtained from stakeholders of the five countries. The stakeholders surveyed have different backgrounds: public employees, academics and non-governmental organizations participants. Cameroon had the largest participation, with a total of eight responses; two responses were received from Burkina Faso and Tunisia, each; and only one response was received from Kenya and South Africa. With a total of five responses, the Safer Road Users pillar of the African Road Safety Action Plan was the one with the highest participation. Economy issues are the most challenging for transferability of road safety interventions in Kenya, South Africa and Tunisia, while in Burkina Faso and Cameroon it is Society/Culture.