From 31st October – 2nd November 2016, EASST’s Kyrgyz partner, Road Safety, took part in a workshop on the prevention of road traffic injuries, organised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) Regional Office and the Ministry of Health of the Kyrgyz Republic. Also in attendance were representatives of the Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Transport, Ministry of Emergency Situations, and various public associations.
This special conference comes after Road Safety Director, Chinara Kasmambetova met with Dr. Jarno Habicht, Head of the WHO Country Office, earlier this year. During the event Chinara and her associate Nurkamal Maksutova presented their experiences of working in the field of road safety in Kyrgyzstan focusing, in particular, on their work with children and providing road safety education to develop safer behavior on the road.
Kyrgyzstan ranks third highest in terms of road fatalities per 100,000 population in the Eurasian region and CIS (53 countries). In 2015, 96 children were killed on the road with 1637 being injured.
Accordingly, workshop participants discussed the urgent need to take action and tackle the main causes of road traffic incidents in the country such as speeding, driving under the influence, no seat belts, no child car seats, no helmets, the quality of road infrastructure, and behaviour on the roads. This included talks around updating and changing relevant legislation. It was concluded that a holistic approach was needed to ensure road safety in the Republic.
