GEORGETOWN — A global financial giant is stepping in as Guyana’s roads continue to claim lives at an alarming rate. Declaring the country’s road-death rate of 15 per 100,000 people “unacceptably high,” the World Bank has warned that Guyana is facing a national road-safety emergency and can no longer afford to look away.
The message comes during National Road Safety Month, where the theme, “Careful Driving Saves Lives” now reads like a desperate plea. Prime Minister Brigadier (Ret’d) Mark Phillips revealed that 574 crashes and 642 deaths were recorded between 2020 and 2024, including 24 children, statistics that underscore a crisis unfolding on highways, bridges, and streets every single week.
World Bank Resident Representative Diletta Doretti, in a hard-hitting op-ed, said Guyana has set a powerful but urgent goal: cut annual road deaths below 50 by 2030. And the Bank is putting its money behind that promise.
Last October, Finance Minister Dr. Ashni Singh and World Bank Vice President Susana Cordeiro Guerra signed the Integrated Transport Corridors Project, a massive infrastructure upgrade across Regions 3, 4, 5, 6, and 10. But this is not just about smoother roads. “This is a public-safety intervention,” Doretti stressed, warning that Guyana must redesign its travel corridors to prevent deaths even when drivers make mistakes.
The project will introduce modern safety defenses long missing from Guyana’s roads: protected sidewalks, bike lanes, safer pedestrian crossings, crash-barriers, and traffic-calming measures in high-risk zones. The upgrade will also bring climate-resilient features and groundbreaking training programmes creating new opportunities for women in road construction.
Doretti noted that similar road-corridor transformations slashed fatalities by up to 81% in countries like Iraq and Tanzania. Experts say Guyana could see the same lifesaving results, but only if swift action continues.
“Guyana’s roads should not inspire fear,” Prime Minister Phillips declared. “They should unite communities, enable commerce, and bring families safely to their destinations.”
The World Bank agrees; the price of delay is counted in funerals.
