Last Tuesday, the Asia-Pacific Road Safety Observatory (APRSO) and the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC), with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) kicked off the third road safety capacity building program webinar series for the year 2025.

The series is designed to build on the momentum of the 2025 Asia-Pacific Regional Road Safety Conference that was held at the ADB Headquarters in Manila in September.

The first session of this webinar series, titled Government Funding Models for Road Safety, spotlighted innovations in funding sources and models for road safety. 150 participants attended the session where speakers spoke about:

✅ How governments finance their road safety initiatives
✅ The connection between political will and sustained funding
✅ Case study examples from across the region

The series was opened by the APRSO Chair Sushil Babu Dhakal, Joint Secretary of the Nepal Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport. Priti Gautam, Senior Transport Specialist and Road Safety Lead, ADB Sectors Department, delivered welcoming remarks.

Samantha Cockfield, Executive General Manager for Road Safety at the Transport Accident Commission of Victoria, Australia, shared the Commission’s experience as a government-owned insurer funded through insurance premiums and investment returns.

Makhjanul Islam Tauhid, Deputy Secretary, Ministry of Road Transport and Bridges in the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, outlined his country’s comprehensive institutional framework for financing road safety, which includes government appropriations to external loan management and monitoring and evaluation of road safety projects.

Stefan Jonsson, from the Swedish Transport Administration, traced the origins of Sweden’s Vision Zero approach and underscored the importance of consistent, long-term funding to integrate safety across all levels — from policy and design to maintenance, consumer behavior, private sector involvement, procurement, and legislation.

Upcoming Session

The Road Safety Capacity Building Program webinar series continues with the next session as detailed below:

Title: Sustainable Funding for Impact

Date: 18 November 2025

Time: 3:00–4:30 p.m., GMT+8

Access webinar details and registration here.

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