Jim Fitzpatrick – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Fitzpatrick on 2015-12-03.
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, whether her Department plans to take account of the conclusions of the United Nations/World Health Organisation Second Global High-Level Conference on Road Safety when preparing the UK’s response to the next set of Sustainable Development Goals.
Mr Desmond Swayne
Road traffic injuries cost developing countries an estimated 1-2% of their gross national product, equivalent to over US$100 billion annually, with a widening of the disparity between advanced and developing countries. Road accidents kill an estimated 1.3 million people and injure up to 78 million people each year.
We are pleased that the burden of road crashes has been recognised in the Sustainable Development Goals and we are committed to supporting the international community to achieve the target of halving the number of global deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents by 2020.
DFID recently increased its funding to the Global Road Safety Facility (GRSF) hosted at the World Bank and will contribute £4.5 million between 2013 and 2017. The GRSF provides funding, knowledge, and technical assistance that lever road safety investments into transport sector programmes.
We also focus on road safety through our research and evidence portfolio. For example our programme on High Volume Transport and the programme “Research for Community Access Partnership” (ReCAP) both have strong road safety research components. DFID also supports a programme in Nepal working to improve road infrastructure for road safety on a critical section of Nepal’s national network.
