31 Mar 2025

As Botswana aspires to achieve a higher income status, the country has no choice but to commit to reducing road traffic fatalities and severe injuries.

It is against this backdrop that Botswana has committed to reduce severe injuries and road traffic deaths by 50 per cent by the year 2030. This will be in line with United Nation’s target for countries to commit to reducing fatalities and severe injuries of road traffic crashes in 10 years, from 2021 to 2030, said the MVA Fund official Mr Mompati Bontsibokae when presenting a report on 2024 Socio-Economic Impact of Road Traffic Crashes during the Motor Vehicle Accident Fund (MVA Fund) Stakeholders Workshop in Gaborone recently.

Mr Bontsibokae, the Fund injury prevention senior manager, said the report was compiled from the road traffic crashes statistics data sourced from the Botswana Police Service together with claims data collected from the MVA Fund. The report, he said demonstrated the impact of road traffic crashes at a social and economic level. Mr Bontsibokae said World Health Organisation recognised road safety as an urgent priority since it was key to sustainable development. 

"Every country’s economy, he said required transport, because it played a key role in all other sectors of the economy.  Road traffic crashes have a negative impact on economic development. Even as a country, we also need to recognise road safety as an urgent development priority,” he said.

For that reason, Mr Bontsibokae said it was important for Botswana as a member of the UN to have the global perspective on road safety and road excellence. Mr Bontsibokae said research had demonstrated that prioritising road safety was also key to economic development.

Globally, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) Report published in 2023, Mr Bontsibokae said 1.19 million people died every year, whilst 15 million sustained severe or incapacitating injuries resulting from road traffic crashes. 

Still, as per the WHO report, he said road traffic crashes were a number one killer of children and young adults aged between five and 29 years. Two-thirds of the people involved, he said were the working class, even at the global level, aged between 18 and 29. This, he said was in the same range with the majority of those involved in Botswana, aged between 21 to 49 years.

MVA corporate communications senior manager, Ms Angela Webb said the Fund’s vision was to enhance the quality of life by promoting safer mobility, compensation, rehabilitation and supporting those affected by road crashes.

Additionally, she said the fund’s mission was to enhance road safety of residents, stressing that ensuring sustainability of the fund was key as it heavily depended on the fuel levy, as source of funding. To save lives, she therefore called upon road users to always prioritise road safety when driving. ENDS