Star Rating for Schools in Uganda

24 July 2019

The Global Fleet Champions programme carries an article highlighting the need for improved management of school zones.

In Uganda’s capital city Kampala there is a need for scalable, sustainable and cost-effective projects in communities to address road safety. Every day, children travelling to and from school are being killed and injured in road crashes. Each of these deaths and injuries is an entirely preventable tragedy, and we have a duty to do all we can to make sure every child can move around safely and access education.

Hope for Victims of Traffic Accidents (HOVITA), a member of the Global Alliance is trying to make a difference by piloting an evidence-based advocacy strategy for safer school zones in Uganda. They are using the award winning ‘ Star Rating for Schools Global Application’ and developed by International Road Assessment Program (iRAP) - the first-ever systematic evidence-based approach for analyzing the risk in roads around schools.

Every year in Commonwealth countries over 210,000 people are killed in road crashes and millions more are seriously injured. Today road traffic injuries are now the leading cause of death for children and young people aged 5-29 years. The Global Fleet Champions programme as over 60% of its countries’ population is under 30. Road safety in the 53 countries of the Commonwealth is very diverse. Fatality rates in road crashes range from 3 to above 30 per 100,000 population.  As in Uganda, in nearly all Commonwealth countries fatality and injury rates are rising rather than falling. Across the Commonwealth the level of road deaths remains unacceptably high and urgent action is required to prevent the loss of over 2 million lives in the decade to 2030.