Cambodian Senior Delegation Road Safety Enforcement Study Tour to Hanoi June 10-11, 2010

For immediate release.

Phnom Penh. June 10^th, 2010.

The Global Road Safety Partnership (GRSP) and Handicap International Belgium (HIB), with generous financial support from the Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Global Road Safety Initiative, is organizing a road safety study tour for senior Cambodian government officials to meet and exchange experiences with their Vietnamese government counterparts in Hanoi from July 10-11, 2010.

The delegation will consist of senior officials from the Ministries of Interior and Transport, the Phnom Penh Municipal Police, as well as Handicap International Belgium - a non-governmental organization active in road safety - to observe and learn from the Vietnam experience in enforcing helmet wearing and drink-driving laws.

The Cambodian delegation will meet with senior representatives from the National Road and Railway Traffic Police, the People’s Police Academy, the National Traffic Safety Council and the World Health Organization. They will also visit selected enforcement checkpoints to observe the methodologies employed by the Vietnamese Police for helmet wearing and drink-driving enforcement.

The Global Road Safety Partnership and Handicap International Belgium believe that enforcement of the traffic law is a critical element to reducing road crashes, injuries and fatalities. Since 2007, GRSP and HIB have supported road safety enforcement in both Vietnam and Cambodia through Professional Development courses for traffic police. The outcomes have contributed to an improvement of, and greater commitment to, enforcement by the police in both countries.

The specific aims of the study tour are:

1. To support the Cambodian delegation to review, assess and observe the strategic and operational applications of helmet-wearing and drink-driving enforcement in Vietnam;

2. To facilitate the transfer of these good practice strategies from Vietnam to the Cambodian context and to motivate the Cambodian senior police and transport decision-makers to improve their traffic law legislation, and enforcement strategies and operations by observing and networking.

Following the visit with Vietnamese officials, the Cambodian delegation will continue its study tour to Australia, meeting senior police from the states of Queensland and Victoria.

The knowledge and skills gained by the Cambodian delegation from the Vietnamese good practice in enforcement will be disseminated to Cambodian traffic police in future workshops to improve helmet wearing and drink driving enforcement in Cambodia.