To approach the challenge, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic collaborated on the project ‘Road safety improvement in the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica through the strengthening of management capacities of the correspondent institutions’, with the objective of developing practices and tools that contribute to the reduction of deaths, injuries and property damage caused by road traffic accidents in both countries.   

Through this cooperation, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic aim to share knowledge, abilities and expertise to reach its goals through concerted efforts, which are in line with the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3 (Good health and well-being), target 3.6 and SDG 11 (Sustainable cities and communities), target 11.2.  

This project emerged from the National Institution of Transit and Ground Transportation (INTRANT) in the Dominican Republic’s interest to learn from Costa Rica Road Safety Council (COSEVI) experience, which was initiated through a formal request. This cooperation was facilitated by the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization?(PAHO/WHO) offices in Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic, which monitor the progress of both countries in achieving  the objectives of the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011–2020, officially proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in 2010. Moreover, the proposed actions, such as policy development, guidance, and communication campaigns, are aligned with the National Strategic Road Safety Plan of the Dominican Republic and with the National Plan for Road Safety 2015–2020 of Costa Rica.  

Cooperation was initiated through multisectoral work meetings with public health and road safety experts from the participating institutions. From the early start, these meetings facilitated the identification of the project formulation, the strengths, capacities, instruments and tools that both countries could share or develop together, with the aim of tackling the respective country’s prioritized challenges. In this way, there was a clear identification of the good practices to be shared during the development of the project, and the good practices that would be created as part of their development.  

With the aim of making the methodological process more participatory, the starting of the project included a week of joint work with the expertise teams from both countries. This allowed to make important adjustments to the methodology, derived from a deep documental analysis and subsequent technical discussions about the situation during the beginning of the project.  

While both institutions play a role in sharing experiences, within this project, COSEVI shared most of the knowledge, technologies and acquired experiences with INTRANT. COSEVI has led important advancements in Costa Rica´s road safety, which has the potential to be shared with similar institutions in the region.  

During this project´s short execution period, the Dominican Republic started the implementation of its technical vehicle inspection programme, which was technically advised by Costa Rica based on its years of experience in this area. Vehicles in a poor state are more prone to create traffic accidents. hence, the inspection programme is a cornerstone of the strategy. In contrast, Costa Rica is sharing communication products through social media, drawing on the long experiences of the Dominican Republic in this aspect.  Additionally, a Road Safety Observatory has been developed to track and monitor progress road safety.  

As a result of the exchange, the following has emerged, which can serve as a reference for other countries wishing to adopt this good practice: manuals, guides and regulations; plans on data collection, processing and analysis on injuries and fatalities from road traffic accidents; technical vehicle inspection programmes; and safer mobility  and communication campaigns.  

To ensure the replication of the outcomes that have been observed to date during the project execution, all the development experience has been systematized. This is indeed one of the objectives of the project, i.e. to facilitate the design of other similar initiatives among countries based on this methodology.