Samiullah (UK DFID), Paul Holmes (USAID) and Nancy Carter Foster (State Department) participating in the discussions
The World Bank has hosted (April 2nd) a donor meeting for the Bank’s Global Road Safety Facility. The meeting was chaired by Jamal Saghir, Director for Energy Transport and Water at the Bank and held at its headquarters in Washington DC. Principle speaker at the donor meeting was the Hon. Karla Gonzales, Minister of Public Works and Transport of Costa Rica who gave an overview of global road safety issues and her experience from a country that has placed a high priority on road injury prevention.
The Washington meeting discussed the World Bank’s recently adopted Transport Sector Business Strategy 2008-12: ‘Safe Clean and Affordable Transport for Development’ and considered the progress since the creation of the Global Road Safety Facility since 2006. To date the Facility has raised $15.9 million and disbursed $7.4 million on a range of capacity building projects in 16 countries. Demand for Facility support across low and middle income countries is increasing rapidly and the Bank estimates a doubling of this activity by 2015 requiring additional funding of a minimum of $20 million per year. A discussion of the Facility’s Programme and projects was also led by Professor Fred Wegman, Chairman of the Facility’s Core Advisory Group.
An independent evaluation of the Facility was also presented to the donor meeting prepared by the consultancy Universalia. Its findings show that within the resources available, the Facility has made a marked difference and strong progress in achieving its goals as set out in the Facility’s Strategic Plan 2006 to 2015. The evaluation recognized, however, that current resource levels inhibited the Facility’s growth and that donors remain reluctant to support global road safety as a development issue. The report recommended that existing donors reaffirm their support for the Facility and that the Bank undertake a high level outreach initiative to build new donor support.
Welcoming the evaluation Jamal Saghir confirmed the Bank’s commitment to the Facility pledging additional resources and administrative support in excess of $1 million on top of the existing $5 million provided by their Development Grant Facility. The current Chairman of the Facility, David Ward of the FIA Foundation also warmly welcomed the evaluation and fully agreed with its assessment and recommendations. On behalf of the FIA Foundation, Mr Ward also committed a further $1 million to the Facility raising its overall contribution to $6 million and matching the Bank’s new funding commitment.
Donors attending the Washington meeting included the Australian Aid Agency, the Transport Ministry of the Netherlands, the Spanish Transport Ministry, the Swedish Road Administration, the UK Department for International Development, the US Aid Agency and the State Department. Presentations were also made by Ministry of Infrastructure of Serbia and the Federal Road Safety Commission of Nigeria, by the International Road Assessment Programme and Chevron.