iRAP partnerships are supporting safer roads and infrastructure investment in Mozambique, with a road safety assessment completed for the Mozambique National Roads Administration (ANE) supported by iRAP and FRED Engineering, and a specialist training workshop delivered in September in Maputo, supported by the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC).

An iRAP Star Rating assessment of 2,541km of existing roads and 70km of designs has recently been completed, taking in Road N1/N10 from Quelimane-Nicoadala-Namacurra in the Zambézia Province and the N1 road corridor from Maputo in the south to Pemba in the far north, under the World Bank financed Mozambique Integrated Feeder Road Development Project.

The project also included Star Rating for Schools (SR4S) assessments at five selected schools on the project corridor and a further 24 schools on the N12/N13 corridor.

Mozambique is a focus of the iRAP MCC programme partnership from 2022-2026 to stimulate safer roads progress in low- and middle-income countries.

The multi-year partnership is providing programme-level support, iRAP assessments, innovation pilots and local capacity building to identify locations where high crash rates are likely to occur and help develop mitigation plans to be included as part of MCC’s investments.

The MCC has a compact underway in the country to promote inclusive economic growth and climate resilience, and improve the quality of and access to transportation infrastructure.

An important objective of these Mozambique initiatives is to build road safety capacity in the country for safer road infrastructure and investment.

The two-day training workshop focused on the completed iRAP and SR4S assessments, and MCC partnership programme, to provide ANE staff with the training, equipment and software to complete future road safety assessments independently in-house.

The training, delivered by iRAP’s Global Projects Director Julio Urzua, Global Operations Manager Luke Rogers, and Daniel Lopez, iRAP Specialist with FRED Engineering, included 23 participants from project stakeholders and will increase local knowledge and skills in the iRAP methodology and tools to eliminate high-risk roads.

“It was a fantastic opportunity to work with key project partners in the country to build local capacity and support the government in their goal to achieve significant reductions in fatal and serious road crashes through systematic, pro-active safety assessments and improved road designs,” Mr Urzua said.

Partner-led iRAP activity has already assessed 136km of roads and designs in Mozambique, and three schools, influencing the safety of US$585 million of infrastructure investment.

Other priority countries supported by the iRAP MCC Partnership Programme include Malawi and Benin, where training workshops have also recently been conducted.

According to iRAP’s Safety Insights Explorer, achieving UN Target 4 for greater than 75% of travel on 3-star or better roads for all road users in Mozambique by 2030 stands to save over one million fatalities and serious injuries over the 20-year life of road treatments with an economic benefit of USD$364.7 million – more than $11 for every $1 spent.