Global collaboration on road traffic injury prevention

Worldwide, nearly 1.2 million people are killed in road traffic crashes every year and 20 million to 50 million more are injured or disabled. These injuries account for 2.1% of global mortality and 2.6% of all disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) lost. Low- and middle-income countries account for about 85% of the deaths and 90% of the DALYs lost annually. Without appropriate action, by 2020, road traffic injuries are predicted to be the third leading contributor to the global burden of disease. The economic cost of road traffic crashes is enormous. Globally it is estimated that US$518 billion is spent on road traffic crashes with low- and middle-income countries accounting for US$65 billion--more than these countries receive in development assistance. But these costs are just the tip of the iceberg. For everyone killed, injured or disabled by a road traffic crash there are countless others deeply affected. Many families are driven into poverty by the expenses of prolonged medical care, loss of a family breadwinner or the added burden of caring for the disabled. There is an urgent need for global collaboration on road traffic injury prevention. Since 2000, WHO has stepped up its response to the road safety crisis by firstly developing a 5-year strategy for road traffic injury prevention and following this by dedicating World Health Day 2004 to road safety and launching the WHO/World Bank World Report on Road Traffic Injury Prevention at the global World Health Day event in Paris, France. This short article highlights the main messages from the World Report and the six recommendations for action on road safety at a national and international level. It goes on to briefly discuss other international achievements since World Health Day and calls for countries to take up the challenge of implementing the recommendations of the World Report.     

The economic system and economic development

An increasing number of voices have recently been claiming that an economic system based more strongly on the market should be introduced in Third World countries for reasons of efficiency. What conditions need to be met in the developing countries for this to be possible? What specific measures should be taken?     

The economic,social and political prerequisites of development

Whether development aid promises to be successful depends not least on the conditions prevalling in the developing countries themselves. A study commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation has examined whether it is possible to identify universal requirements for successful development in Third World countries. Its main findings are presented below.     

Poverty—A structural problem of developing countries

The contrast between industrialized and developing countries is often seen as one between two opposites: Rich countries—poor countries. But the poverty in the developing countries is by no means identical with the need for help as perceived in the industrialized societies. Poverty in the Third World is, as the following article shows, a structural problem.     

The long road to regional cooperation

Cooperation measures conducive to increased integration between developing countries are considered to be necessary from the point of view of development theory as well as beneficial. Such measures are also in general welcomed, and on occasion even supported, by the governments of the industrialised countries. Organizations for the promotion of cooperation and integration of neighbouring countries have been brought into being in almost all regions of the Third World.     

Integration for development — Hopes and problems

The following article deals with the conditions under which regional associations in the Third World can improve the economic situation of the developing countries and the question how suitable they are for this purpose.     

The impact of the EC’s agricultural policy on its trade with developing countries

The European Community has frequently been blamed for impairing, through its highly protectionist agricultural policy, the development chances of Third World countries. Our article analyses whether, and to what extent, this reproach is justified.     

Multinational corporate social responsibility,ethics, interactions and Third World governments: An agenda for the 1990s

A critical literature on mulitnational corporate social responsibility has developed in recent years. Many authors addressed the issue in the Third World countries. This paper reviews the literature, focusing on the relationship between the multinational corporations (MNCs) and Third World governments in fulfilling the social responsibility, based on the underlying ethical imperative.There is a growing consensus that both corporations and governments should accept moral responsibility for social welfare and individual interests in their economic transactions. A collaborative relationship is proposed where the MNCs share information based on global experiences and offer input into host government developmental policies, and aid their implementation. The government, in turn, provides a reasonable regulatory environment. This calls for ongoing interactions among officials at all levels of the two institutions, with the local corporate subsidiary playing a pivotal role. The desired conduct of the parties is reinforced by international organizations and other constituents, representing common human concerns across cultures. These relationships are examined and an agenda for policy and action by the MNCs and the Third World governments is developed.The accelerated growth in the number of multinational corporations (MNCs) and their worldwide scope, with concentration of economic and political power draws attention to corporate social responsibility. Furthermore, a meeting of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in 1987, with delegates from 141 developed and developing countries concluded with a major agreement.Sita C. Amba-Rao professional interests involve Human Resource Management (HRM) and Organizational Development. She taught Business and Society, and her research on business social responsibility includes a publication on the Union Carbide accident in India. Amba-Rao had worked in Indian Industry. She will be conducting a field study in India on comparative HRM and managerial values.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Association for the Advancement of Policy Research and Development in the Third World (APRDT) at Mexico City in November, 1990.     

GATT and the new economic order

The developing countries are calling for a “New Economic Order” because they feel that the trading system discriminates against them. Whether GATT will emerge from the present negotiations better adapted to the needs of the Third World remains to be seen.     

Equity dimensions of road traffic injuries in low- and middle-income countries

Globally, poorer population groups bear a disproportionate burden of avoidable morbidity and mortality from road traffic injuries. The distribution of road traffic injuries is generally influenced by socioeconomic factors. Poor countries bear a disproportionate burden of injuries and fatalities, and within countries, poor people account for a disproportionate portion of the ill health due to road traffic injuries. The main source of data for this paper was the road traffic injury database of the WHO World Health Report for 1999 supplemented by the WHO Global Burden of Disease Study 2000 report, and published and unpublished works. Fatality rates for 0-4 and 5-14 year olds in low- and middle-income regions, measured as deaths per 100,000 population, were six times the rates for high-income regions, while within low- and middle-income regions the rates varied widely. Within poor countries, poor people – represented by pedestrians, passengers in buses and trucks, and cyclists – suffer a higher burden of morbidity and mortality from traffic injuries. In rich countries, children from poor socioeconomic classes suffer more injuries and deaths from road crashes than their counterparts from highincome groups. The disproportionate burden of morbidity and mortality in low- and middle-income countries, and among low socioeconomic groups in those countries, illustrates problems of global inequities in health. The problems can be addressed through policies that focus on the road safety of vulnerable groups.     

Effects of the state trade countries upon the commodity markets

This article proves that a good deal is to be said for an abandonment by the state trade countries of their financial abstention and for their active financial participation in the Integrated Programme for Commodities. At UNCTAD IV in Nairobi the Third World nations first presented their requests to the state trade countries, in an unmistakable manner, for more extensive development-policy contributions.     

Aid policy of the industrial countries

Time and again, and in the more recent past during the UNCTAD Ill-Conference, the less developed countries (LDCs) have found fault with the industrial countries’ declining contribution towards the economic development of the Third World. The question is now whether the future will bring a change of this tendency which has shown itself for a number of years.     

German investment in developing countries

The Pros and Cons of direct investment promotion measures in overseas countries have recently become the subject of fierce controversy in all industrialised countries, including the Federal Republic of Germany. Advocates and opponents of such measures, however, almost exclusively try to analyse the desirability and effects of such investments in the industrialised countries only, virtually disregarding the problem of direct investment in developing countries. The Department on Development Policies of the Hamburg Institute for International Economics has therefore recently begun to investigate the volume, the motivation, and the success of German investments in the “Third World”. The following report discusses the first results of this study.     

Some critical aspects of EC development Co-operation

The range of instruments used by the European Community in its development co-operation with Third World countries is wide and in various respects controversial. The following article illustrates a number of aspects of EC development co-operation that have attracted criticism and makes suggestions for an efficient policy.     

Food aid: An effective instrument of development policy?

After over thirty years experience with food aid, there is consensus only on its use as a means of mitigating acute distress; except with regard to disaster relief of that kind, opinions are divided on the rationale of food aid deliveries from industrial countries with a food surplus to Third World countries with a deficit. What are the main arguments for and against food aid, and in which direction has the EC’s food aid programme developed?     

Processing mineral raw materials

Processing of raw materials by the producer countries themselves has frequently been recommended as an appropriate way for developing countries to increase their domestic value added and achieve positive employment effects. As against that, the following article suggests that Third World governments should not take hasty investment decisions in favour of processing raw materials since the effects on the national economy in terms of the cost-benefit ratio could well be more favourable in other branches of industry.     

Economic relations with the Third World

While foreign policy as well as economic, ideological and purely humanitarian considerations all continue to play a role in economic relations between the CMEA countries and the Third World, a shift in the relative weights of these various aspects has become discernible in recent years. What conclusions can be drawn as to the future behaviour of the CMEA countries towards the developing countries?     

Definitiveness and operationality of dissociation

While the traditional export promotion and import substitution strategies have largely failed to boost development in the Third World, rigorous dissociation from the industrialized countries cannot be regarded as a realistic strategy either. More promising seems a combination of partial dissociation from the North and increased cooperation between the developing countries themselves.     

The economics of Third World arms imports

The international trade with weapons and its effects on the Third World are rarely mentioned in papers on international trade. This is not really surprising, given the fact that military affairs are kept very secret. Of all social science data it is probably that of the military sector which is the most scarce and unreliable. Despite these difficulties the author of the following article describes some recent trends in the international trade in major weapons and analyses their negative effects on Third World countries.