571 Improvement on road safety through capacity building on safer road infrastructure: a local action project on safer roads in Surkhet, Nepal

<h3></h3> Road Safety is one of the major challenge in Nepal with fatalities rate of 8 per/day (Traffic Police, 2023) and 23 per/day (WHO, 2023). With three tier of government, Road Safety is prioritized in central level but not at provincial and local level. The project area was western part of Nepal which has been given less priority despite significant road crashes, especially run off crashes on hilly terrain and speed based crash on urban area. The objective was to contribute to saving lives through focusing on capacity building and advocacy on safer road infrastructure and speed management to achieve SDG target 3.6 and 11.2 and through meaningful youth engagement. This project receive local action grant from Global Youth Coalition for Road Safety to implement the proposed intervention. The main outcome of the project is the creation of a committee of young engineers capable of carrying out RSA and advocate for safer road infrastructure along with bunch of other people with knowledge on safer road infrastructure. Thirteen engineers were trained about RSA and more than 50 engineering students were trained about road safety engineering. The project carried out Road Safety Audit of 30 km and identified road safety deficiencies and provided the recommendation to ensure road safety; and later advocate for implementation of recommendation. The average speed at major urban corridor was around 42 kmph and after strong enforcement of 30 kmph speed limit with help of traffic police it falls below 30 kmph, which ultimately reduces the possibility of severe crashes. The major outcome of the project seen was the change in people attitude towards road safety. This can also be observed through allocation of local bodies budget on safety intervention immediately and also on next fiscal year, which further support the effectiveness of the project. This project had a large implication on the knowledge, capacity and awareness among the various stakeholder of Karnali province, where road safety is not given consideration. This project aware the local and provincial government towards road safety and also works on technical capacity building among engineers to improve road safety through better road infrastructure.