Redefining “safe mobility”, looking beyond just the reduction of road accidents, to address the health of citizens and push for driver assistance technologies and highly automated driving systems, is imperative in today’s world.
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) reports that by 2040 global infrastructure investment needs for transport could cost up to $94 trillion (in 2015 prices). To move forward, ensuring that a broader and more comprehensive understanding of safe mobility is applied is necessary as this puts the life and livelihood of the citizen at the core of every project.
True change requires considering both infrastructure and transportation at once – like looking through a pair of glasses with two lenses to see. With transportation, the story is centered around improving people’s productivity and incomes by connecting them to jobs, schools and healthcare, and delivering goods and service to rural and urban communities, all supported by a strong infrastructure. We look at transport through a human-centered lens to achieve value-centric results and reduce poverty, inequality and inefficiency.
In our current portfolio, development projects have helped 2+ million passengers use train services per day in 27 governorates, and 3.5 million people to use Borg Al- Arab International Airport. Promoting sustainable transport in 2020, the Ministry of International Cooperation secured $1.794 billion in development financing in support of the transportation sector, with development partners that include the EIB, AFD, EBRD, China, and Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development (KFAED).
To rehabilitate the Cairo Metro line 1, we signed a €50M agreement with Agence Française de Développement (AFD), and brought together the AFD, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and European Investment Bank (EIB) in the collaborative funding of the project, implemented by the National Authority for Tunnels (NAT). The EIB also invested $1.3million in Cairo’s Metro Line 2 in the “Feasibility Study for the Rehabilitation and Upgrading of the 2nd Metro Line”.
Integrating rural communities and improving infrastructure, the USAID provided an additional grant of $6 million for the North Sinai Development Initiative, which aims to support transport and create sustainable cities and communities through facilitating mobility for rural communities and improving the infrastructure. It will also allow farmers in Sinai to have access to markets and sell their goods to compete in internal and export markets.
The previous projects help to achieve the following targets of the SDGs:
Develop sustainable, resilient and inclusive infrastructures Indicator: Improved road access for rural populations and develop quality, reliable, sustainable and resilient infrastructure
Promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization Indicator: Industry’s share of employment and gross domestic product is raised, in line with national circumstances
Facilitate sustainable infrastructure development for developing countries Indicator: increased total official international support (official development assistance plus other official flows) to infrastructure.
Diversify, innovate and upgrade for economic productivity Indicator: achieve higher levels of economic productivity through diversification and sustainable transport systems
Affordable and sustainable transport systems Indicator: proportion of population that has convenient access to public transport, by sex, age and persons with disabilities increased.
Knowledge sharing and cooperation for access to science, technology and innovation
