This week the Asia-Pacific Road Safety Observatory (APRSO) is with our member country Bhutan to conduct a Safe System Maturity Assessment to support ongoing efforts to improve road safety. The assessment utilizes the global best practice tool developed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) (https://www.adb.org/publications/assessing-national-road-safety-management-systems) to provide an assessment of country level progress in adoption of the Safe System approach for road safety.

An expert team from APRSO have joined an ADB team who are managing current transport projects, to meet with a series of key stakeholders, commencing with a kick off meeting with the Director General of the Department of Surface Transport (DOST). Further meetings with key stakeholders will follow through the week.

Next week, APRSO and ADB will join with the Ministry of Infrastructure & Transport of the Royal Government of Bhutan to hold a Safe System Road Safety Workshop in Thimphu, which will support validation of key findings and focus on building knowledge and capacity in evidence-based road safety interventions.

The grant fund for these activities was received from the Japan Fund for Prosperous and Resilient Asia and Pacific (JFPR), financed by the Government of Japan through ADB.