“Building capacity on all fronts and ensuring all new roads are built and existing roads upgraded to the 3-star or better standard for all road users will be critical to fatality and serious injury reductions in Tanzania,” said Susanna Zammataro, Director General of the International Road Federation (IRF). “This is a key milestone of the Ten Step Project which is also supporting training in road safety engineering, iRAP Assessments and road safety audits; reviews of national strategy on safe infrastructure; and the national road design standards.”
Jointly funded by the United Nations Road Safety Fund (UNRSF) and by the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (UKAid), through the Global Road Safety Facility (GRSF) of the World Bank, the Ten Step Plan Tanzania is a 30-month project designed to meet the specific needs of Tanzania and build sustainable institutional capacity, impact and partnerships. Under the guidance of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) the project is being implemented by a consortium led by the International Road Federation (IRF), and includes the International Road Assessment Programme (iRAP), the World Road Association (PIARC) and the Tanzania Roads Association (TARA).
Already 539 road safety professionals and engineers have recently received road safety training supported by the Ten Step Project and 16 have attained iRAP Supplier Accreditation to support the assessments. During the coming months, iRAP accredited experts will perform new assessments of existing roads and designs using the iRAP methodology and drawing on TANROADS and TARURA datasets. This will build on the more than 5,000km of assessments of existing roads and designs previously funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies Initiative for Global Road Safety (BIGRS) and undertaken by the GRSF.
Through TanRAP, the Ten Step Project will grow the length of existing roads and designs assessed to more than 10,000km by March 2023, building on the more than US$1 billion of road infrastructure investment already made safer through iRAP assessments.
TanRAP will support implementation of the Global Plan for the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021-2030 in Tanzania which provides a road map for how countries can halve road deaths and serious injuries by 2030.
Achieving greater than 75 per cent of travel on 3-star or better roads for all road users by 2030 stands to save 1.6 million lives and serious injuries over the 20-year life of treatments in Tanzania with an economic benefit of $26 for every $1 spent.
