Road Safety: A priority issue for health and development
Program Background:
Improving road safety in Bangladesh is now really a requiring and vital issue to health well-being for the citizen of the country. Bangladesh has one of the highest rates of road deaths in the region. Global studies have also reported that road injuries are among the top five causes of deaths for children and young working-age adults of the country. The deaths and injuries out of the road accidents are also hindering the national productivity and the average life expectancies of the country. Bangladesh can achieve substantial increase in economic growth and national income if the number of crash fatalities and injuries could have sharply reduced. Investment in effective road crash fatality and injury prevention programs will contribute to the accumulation of human capital.
Develoing a communication strategy for a safe road use promotion and practice as preventive measure; a demand of time:
Considering the situation, the World Bank Group came forward to develop a communication strategy creating an all-out awareness of different groups of the vulnerable road users and the program as well as societal stakeholders to play their appropriate roles. Entrusted from the World Bank Group, Bangladesh Center for Communication Programs (BCCP) developed the communication strategy for a versatile and multifaceted communication intervention programs addressing the different target audience groups encompassing the program beneficiaries to program stakeholders. These interventions is expected to enhance awareness and encourage motive behavior changes to adopt safe road use practices amongst the entire groups of targeted audience. Effective communication through carefully designed interventions will motivate and persuade the audiences to change their attitude and behavior and adopt safe road use practice. It is expected that the comprehensive communication interventions will be enabling the effective delivery of information to the appropriate groups of the target audience.
Objective of the comprehensive communication strategy:
The key objectives of this communication strategy was to have;
(i) Sustained and targeted reductions in fatalities and serious injuries caused by the road crashes in Bangladesh; and
(ii) To strengthen coordination and road safety management in the country including capacity building of agencies.
(iii) Enhancing road safety awareness and motivate behavior changes to adopt safe road use practices among targeted stakeholders.
Identified target audiences of the communication strategy:
The communication strategy followed by the communication plan has been developed targeting the following five clusters of target audiences:
- 
Vulnerable Audiences-Road Users Groups (Pedestrians, passengers, bus/truck/car drivers, transport workers, rickshaw puller, bi-cyclist, motor cyclist)
- Law enforcing agencies (Police, BRTA)
- Policy Makers (MoHA, MoRTAB, MoHFW, MoE, MoI)
- Supporting Target Audience (Bus/truck owners association, bus/truck workers association)
- Auxiliary Target Audience (CSO, social activist, social and religious organizations, educational institutions).
The communication action plan:
The communication action plan have some suggested communication tools/channels that can be used in implementing the interventions. This multidisciplinary campaign will work in different levels:
· 
National and community level campaign
· Electronic and print media campaign
· Social media campaign
· Community media campaign.
The multidisciplinary activity to cut across different communication approaches:
· Advocacy at different levels
· In-person and in-group communication
· Coordination amongst and between organization and stakeholders
· Networking and partnership
Policy Dialogue with the road safety field’s program stakeholders:
BCCP organized a webinar on the titled issue to get stakeholder’s views and recommendations with certain communication interventions those are playing respective roles on road safety programs. Through this webinar BCCP is expecting a thorough discussions to find the ways out of;
- Creating a big buzz and command attention of stakeholders and the mass people at the national cause of Road Safety
- Program stakeholders involvement and engagement in the Road Safety issues and make them become responsive to this issue of national importance
Highlight the Road Safety issue to address with collective effort and participations by all levels.