Road safety issues in Ghana require more attention and urgency, just as the government’s fight against the Covid-19 outbreak.
According to Dr Raphael Awuah, the African Regional Advisor on Data and Surveillance for Vital Strategies, despite road traffic fatalities, little attention and resources have been committed to curbing the menace.
He was speaking at a two-day training workshop on the development of road safety mass media campaign in Kumasi.
The training workshop was organised by the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly in collaboration with the National Road Safety Authority (NRSA) and the Bloomberg Philanthropies Initiative for Global Road Safety (BIGRS).
Dr Awuah wants adequate state funding to empower institutions like the NRSA to efficiently carry out their mandate.
“Work within the road safety arena is capital intensive and demands the allocation of enough funding resources to enable stakeholder agencies, most especially the NRSA to carry out their mandate efficiently,” he said.
Statistics from the Global Burden of Road Traffic Crashes in lower-middle-income countries show that approximately 27 deaths per 100,000 population in Africa were recorded in 2013 and 2016.
Dr Awuah called on road safety agencies in the country to play their part in improving safety, particularly among vulnerable road users.
Communication Officer for BIGRS, Mavis Oppong, called on the government to allocate more funding for road safety interventions, to fully tackle the road safety problem.
“Work within the road safety arena is capital intensive and demands the allocation of enough funding resources to enable stakeholder agencies, most especially the National Road Safety Authority (NRSA) carry out their mandate efficiently,” she said.
She also wants multi-sectoral partnerships and collaboration between stakeholder organizations in tackling road crash menace.
“For long-term improvements, mass media campaigns should be an integral part of a comprehensive strategy involving multiple sectors and incorporating vehicle safety, road user behavior, the road environment, evidence-based planning and effective enforcement of traffic laws,” she said.
KMA-BIGRS Initiative Coordinator, Randy Wilson, revealed though human error plays a major role in the numerous crashes, that is not the only cause of road crashes.