Tanzania straps up helmet demand

A delegation from the Tanzania Ministry of Home Affairs’ Tanzania Prisons Service and the Tanzania Helmet Vaccine Initiative has come to Hanoi for a four-day visit to investigate helmet production and advocacy projects in Vietnam.

The delegation has just clinched a memorandum of understanding with Asia Injury Prevention (AIP) Foundation in Hanoi as the first step in developing a technical and implementation plan to build a tropical helmet factory in East Africa, based on the Protec model. The factory will create jobs in Tanzania and provide high-quality helmets to the regional market, including Kenya and Uganda. AIP’s Protec will export parts and components for local assembly in Tanzania.

According to the AIP, the Tanzanian government aimed to establish the factory which would be developed by the Tanzania Prison Services.

“A helmet initiative based on Vietnam’s successful model and adapted to the needs of Tanzanian road users has the potential to save thousands of lives,” said Tanzania Prisons Service’s head John C. Minja.

“We want to learn from Vietnam’s success and hope to gain valuable technical advice from AIP Foundation and the Global Helmet Vaccine Initiative,” he said.

“This visit marks an important achievement for AIP Foundation and Vietnam,” said AIP’s founder Greig Craft. “We have been able develop an innovative, yet practical, developmental solution for other countries who recognise this unique opportunity to replicate our success on their own roads.”

A low-income country of approximately 47 million people, Tanzania faces a growing road safety crisis, similar to Vietnam’s. The country reported 2,595 fatalities and 16,308 injuries due to road traffic accidents in 2007. Of the lives lost on Tanzania’s roads, one-in-four are bicyclists or motorcycle riders, who could have been protected with a quality helmet.

The relationship between Vietnam and Tanzania road safety stakeholders was initiated by Craft, and Tanzanian Prime Minister Mizengo Kayanza Peter Pinda in 2010. Encouraged by the successful helmet initiatives in Vietnam, Pinda recently selected the appropriate government entities to develop a similar initiative in Tanzania.

He has keen interest in Vietnam’s rice growing technology and the delegation will meet with Oxfam representatives to learn from Vietnam’s experiences.