Every day, five children in Vietnam lose their lives due to road traffic crashes—amounting to approximately 2,000 preventable deaths each year, according to the AIP Foundation.
Now the Foundation has partnered with the World Health Organization (WHO) to formally sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to launch the Vietnam Project 2000 Road Safety Partnership.
The project aims to improve road safety through coordinated action, evidence-based solutions, and the collective will of government agencies, NGOs, international partners, the private sector and community leaders. It will focus on priority areas including helmet use, child restraints and safe school zones.
Dr Angela Pratt, WHO Representative in Vietnam, and Mr Greig Craft, President and Founder of AIP Foundation, signed the MoU between the two organizations.
The partnership aims to make progress towards reducing the number of children and young people killed on Vietnam’s roads from 2000 each year to zero.
“No child should lose their life on the way to school,” said Dr Pratt. “In other words, every child – and every person – should be safe while going about their daily lives on the roads. As a mother of two young daughters, it breaks my heart to know that five families in Vietnam lose a child or young person in a road crash, every day. So, Vietnam Project 2000 is about more than statistics; it’s about saving futures, supporting families and creating safe, thriving communities.”
Moving forward, WHO and AIP Foundation, will invite proposed partners from the Government of Vietnam, international organizations and civil society to join the partnership. The official partnership launch is expected later this year.
