In this monthly column called “The Indicator”, we take a economic or financial statistic from East Africa and break it down into bite-sized nuggets of knowledge for investors.
This month’s Indicator is a sad one, dedicated to the loss of a good friend of the authors, Mohamed Mtaturu Mkonongo, and is intended to be a note of caution.
43,164 is the number of traffic accident fatalities found for the latest year studied in the East African Community countries, except for Burundi due to lack of available data.
What do you mean by road traffic fatalities?
Car, truck, motorcycle, and other automobile crashes on roadways that ended the life of a person are counted as road traffic fatalities.
How big of an issue is road traffic for public health?
The World Health Organization reports that “road traffic injuries are the leading cause of death among young people, aged 15–29 years and 90% of the world’s fatalities on the roads occur in low and middle income countries, even though these countries have approximately half of the world’s vehicles.”
Weighted by population, each year EAC countries have 2.9 people die from road traffic per every 10 thousand people in the country.
Which EAC country has the most and least per capita road traffic fatalities?
Tanzania has the highest per capita traffic accident fatalities in the EAC at 3.2 for every 10 thousand citizens. Rwanda is close behind with 3.0 traffic deaths per 10 thousand people. Uganda has the lowest per capita rate at 2.8 per 10 thousand people and Kenya’s is slightly higher at 2.9 per every 10 thousand people.
The per capita rates are surprisingly close to each other considering the differences in population, infrastructure and geography between the EAC countries.
What about road safety on a per kilometer of roadway?
This tells a very frightening story. In Rwanda there are 3,782 deaths per year across a mere 4,700 km of roadway implying 8 deaths for every 10 km of roadway per year. The figure is less in other countries. Kenya has the lowest with 8 deaths per every 100 km of roadway per year.
How do traffic accident deaths in the EAC compare to other regions of the world?
Combined as a unit, EAC countries rank within the top 15 most dangerous places to be on the road. The safest place per capita is in Micronesia and Sweden with 0.2 and 0.3 deaths per annum per 10 thousand people, more than 10 times safer than EAC countries.
Are traffic accident deaths going up or going down in the EAC?
The data shows more activities on all methods of transportation and more cars on the road will likely mean more road traffic fatalities. Projections reflect an increase of 7-9% per annum in deaths per year through 2021 in the EAC.
How does this hurt the economies of East Africa?
We estimate that road fatalities reduce the economic output of EAC countries by about $115.6 million USD per year assuming average productivity per person lost to a road traffic fatality.
The people lost would more than likely have long lives resulting in an estimated $5 billion USD worth of lifetime productivity from each year’s cohort of road traffic fatalities spread throughout the EAC.
Traffic crashes, a broader estimate, result in $1.7 billion USD in economic losses per year in the EAC in the most recent year’s data.
What is being done to increase road safety in EAC countries?
In 2012 the EAC launched a massive harmonization of transportation regulations strongly focused on improving road safety. A harmonization of laws helps share best practices across the countries in increasing road safety and reducing fatalities.
The EAC is also developing a standardized driving training course, curriculum, and instructor’s manual for drivers of large commercial vehicles. The project is due to be completed soon and will be implemented in the near future.
Improvement of the quality of roads and other transportation facilities are a very high priority to the EAC and its member states and citizens can expect further progress on this issue as many improvements have been made already.
Please dear readers, be vigilant on the road and please remember to stay safe out there.
How can I learn more?
To learn more about traffic safety in East Africa you can visit:
World Health Organization Road Traffic Deaths –http://www.who.int/gho/road_safety/mortality/en/
East African Community and African Development Bank – Harmonization of Road Safety Laws and Regulations Report – http://www.eac.int/infrastructure/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=181&Itemid=154
About the authors:
David L. Ross is Managing Director of Statera Capital and US Ambassador to the Open University of Tanzania active in growing companies in Eastern and Southern Africa through primary investment, investment advisory, strategic partnerships, and executive education. Connect on LinkedIn at http://tz.linkedin.com/in/davidlross1 or at david@stateracapital.com.
 Catherine Mandler is a Senior Analyst at Statera Capital. Connect on LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/in/CatherineMandler or at catherine@stateracapital.com.
Source: Exchange

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of TradeMark Africa.