In Morocco, Mauritania and Senegal, this UNRSF project implemented by UN ESCWA is supporting the transportation authorities to develop geometric design standards to ensure roads are designed to provide adequate levels of safety and accessibility to all road users. 

Road safety outcomes are greatly influenced by the design of the road infrastructure. Safe and inclusive road infrastructure design provides a forgiving road environment. It supports, at the same time, the development of sustainable cities, low-carbon transport, and good health and well-being by ensuring adequate infrastructure for non-motorised transport.

Despite being the least motorized region, the African continent has the highest road traffic fatality rates in the world - 26.6 per 100,000 people - according to the latest WHO Global Status report. This translates in hundreds of daily deaths, nearly half of which involve vulnerable road users such as pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists. 

In line with the recommendations of the Global Plan of the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021-2030, this project will support countries in Africa to review their geometric design standards/manuals/guidelines in order to ensure that roads are designed to provide adequate levels of safety and accessibility to all road users.  It will do so by taking a multi-stakeholders' approach already piloted successfully in Tanzania via the UNRSF-funded Ten Step Project and by focusing specifically on three countries in Africa: Morocco, Mauritania and Senegal.

Roads are designed and built according to set standards. These are generally adopted by authorities responsible for road infrastructure in a country and provide a basis for stipulating quality standards for roads also when it comes to accessibility, safety, security and sustainability.

The project focus countries recognise that road design standards and practices in the region are often outdated in terms of road safety engineering principles, are inconsistent, and do not reflect international good practices. 

According to the latest Global Status Report on Road Safety the road traffic death rate number per 100,000 in Morocco, Mauritania and Senegal is respectively: 19.6, 23.4 and 27.7. For the three target countries, latest available figures show that roughly 60% of those deaths happen on inter-urban roads. Thus the urgent need to revise road design standards, manuals and guidelines so as to eliminate or minimize risks for all road users. 

This project aims to fill that gap and to provide a concrete answer to those needs by:

1. Supporting revision of road design standards/manuals in 3 target countries (Morocco, Mauritania and Senegal) and through them promote a coordinated and regional approach to revision of standards/manuals which would be highly beneficial especially with reference to corridors in the framework of the Trans-African Highways network
2. Building the understanding around the importance of providing safe road infrastructure for all road users and the inherent capacity to design and deliver safe roads.