This month in Dushanbe, FIRE AID and founding members the Eastern Alliance for Safe and Sustainable Transport (EASST) commissioned by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), with support from UK Aid through the World Bank’s Global Road Safety Facility (GRSF), launched a new training toolkit with resources to enhance the effectiveness of post-crash emergency medical and rescue operations.

The toolkit was presented at a high-level meeting hosted by the EBRD and EASST partners the Young Generation of Tajikistan (YGT) where 50 key stakeholders including representatives from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ministry of Transport, and the Ministry of Health as well as other relevant agencies discussed post-crash vehicle collision response systems in Tajikistan – beginning from the point of the vehicle collision, taking in the full lifecycle of immediate post-crash response, emergency medical care, trauma care and victim rehabilitation.

In 2016 the World Health Organisation estimated that better emergency care “could address over half the deaths in low and middle income countries”. However, despite often highly motivated and capable crews, post-crash response is generally poorly resourced.

In Tajikistan, FIRE AID has been working with YGT, EASST, Women in the Fire Service (WFS), London Fire Brigade and the Staffordshire Emergency Service Aid Association (SESHAA) alongside the Republican Fire Service since 2015 to improve emergency response capacity through providing training and equipment. However, the country is still under-equipped and more strategic investment is needed.

The toolkit, which has been developed in partnership by the EBRD, EASST, FIRE AID, SharedAim, and the George Institute for Global Health UK, includes six easy-to-follow video animations covering the key stages of the post-crash response lifecycle. It has been designed as a helpful resource for joint planning, to assist all stakeholders in the management of post-crash response to save lives and improve outcomes for survivors. It covers basic best practice around the need for strategic planning and investment, good coordination, communication, equipment and training.

Commitment to improving post-crash response is a core part of global action to reduce road casualties. The EBRD has been scaling up its activities in road safety, supporting its commitment towards the 2nd UN Decade of Action and Sustainable Development Goals, and examining its investments within its countries of operation to improve road safety standards and identify entry points associated with the five pillars which form the UN Global Plan. Pillar 5, Post-crash Response, is vital to saving lives and meeting global casualty reduction targets. However, it is the Pillar that is most often overlooked by the donor community. It is hoped that the launch of the toolkit will be a starting point for dialogue and discussion aimed at identifying goals for improving post-crash services in Tajikistan.

Every country has different structures and challenges, so the toolkit launched this month is by no means ‘one-size-fits-all’ – it has been adapted to meet local needs in Tajikistan. But certain elements of good post-crash response apply everywhere, and we will be using this basis to release a global toolkit in the coming weeks.