EBRD finances road safety project for children in Azerbaijan

Last month, the road area in front of Sumgait’s School #2 underwent child-friendly transformation. The aim of the transformation has been to reduce speeds around the school and improve children’s road safety, Qazet.az reports citing European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
On 12 October, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), in partnership with the Eastern Alliance for Safe and Sustainable Transport (EAAST), the National Automobile Club of Azerbaijan (AMAK), and the Global Designing Cities Initiative (GDCI), organised a workshop for key decision makers, stakeholders, and Azerbaijani media to present work done for last months on transforming the area, to assess the early impact of this transformation, discuss lessons learned, and examine avenues for future implementation across Azerbaijan. 
Organisers of the workshop noted that within weeks, transformation had reduced congestion in front of the school, and slowed traffic considerably. Now, 17% fewer vehicles exceed the speed limit and vehicle top speed in front of the school is down by 33%. The workshop also overviewed key concepts of child-friendly road design, looking at theoretic aspects, international case studies, and in-depth analysis of design decisions applied at School #2. Stakeholders also visited the site to see the impact for themselves, and to hear the feedback from students and teachers.
One parent said, “Schoolchildren do not experience congestion in front of school anymore and because of the speed humps, the speed has decreased a lot.” The director of the school commented: “Your project will have a big impact on the safety of our school children on these roads. We hope that such initiatives will not stop with this school.”
“We must learn how to prioritise children on roads around schools. We are happy to have key global experts with us today from the Global Designing Cities Initiative who have produced a Toolkit on exactly how to do this, and very capable local partners from AMAK and EASST who have helped to develop this project.” – Kamola Makhmudova, Head of the EBRD’s Resident Office in Baku.
GDCI has also presented the toolkit “Designing streets for kids” which was used for the project and also successfully implemented internationally in many countries, and which will be made available to groups aiming to replicate this work. The toolkit will be available to stakeholders in Azerbaijan, but also to donors, road safety observatories, and other relevant institutions working towards better road safety
The transformation project was funded by the UK Aid through the World Bank’s Global Road Safety Facility (GRSF), and co-funded by the EBRD. The project was implemented by the Eastern Alliance for Safe and Sustainable Transport (EASST), the EBRD, the Global Designing Cities Initiative (GDCI), and the National Automobile Club of Azerbaijan (AMAK). 
The EBRD is a leading institutional investor in Azerbaijan. Since the start of its operations there in 1992, the Bank has invested more than €3.65 billion in 181 projects.