The International Road Assessment Programme (iRAP) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding and agreed a detailed work plan which aims to improve safe road infrastructure across the Bank’s road operations.
The two organisations have agreed to work together to identify and implement road safety investment strategies that have strong social and economic returns across the bank’s developing member countries in Asia and the Pacific.
The agreement, which was signed by iRAP CEO, Rob McInerney, and ADB Director General of Regional and Sustainable Development, Xianbin Yao, at a ceremony at the ADB’s headquarters in Manila, will form an important part of the bank’s new Sustainable Transport Initiative and will help in its mission to fight poverty in the region. Together, iRAP and the ADB will assess high volume, high risk roads and develop and invest in infrastructure improvements that prevent deaths and injuries. They will also explore opportunities to integrate iRAP benchmarking, performance tracking and economic evaluation tools into the ADB’s project cycle and planning activities, to ensure that road safety remains a high priority within the bank’s operations.
ADB was one of seven development banks to sign a joint statement on ‘A Shared Approach to Managing Road Safety’ ahead of the Moscow Ministerial Conference on road safety in November 2009. The statement committed the multilateral development banks (MDBs) to “ensure that safety is integrated in all phases of planning, design, construction, appraisal, operation and maintenance of road infrastructure”. The ADB signed an MOU with the FIA Foundation in May 2010 in which the two organisations agreed to work together on areas of common interest, including helmet safety, vehicle standards and safe road infrastructure. Both IRAP and the FIA Foundation have also signed similar agreements with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). In their Joint Statement, the seven MDBs endorsed the objective of working to prevent five million deaths during the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety.