This paper examines impact of Road Accidents on community socio-economic activities in Iringa municipality. It assumes that accident as any disaster adversely affects people, property and environment. The paper employed questionnaire, interview, observation and documentary search for data collection. The study found that road accidents on-site conditions were caused by poor infrastructure, overloading of vehicles, law impunity, inadequacy of relevant laws, corruption, negligence of drivers, lack of road safety education and road traffic signs. Road accidents caused loss of lives, increase of dependence, destruction of property, increase of poverty, injuries and permanent disabilities. Provision of training to drivers, serious enforcement of the laws, provision of education to road users through public agitations, posters and television broadcasts, introduction of ad hoc inspection of road quality and transport facilities were some of the techniques used to curb the risk. Generally, road accidents caused a great loss of human, physical and natural resources. The intervention is on on-site conditions while very little attention is put on the root causes. It is recommended that, in addressing this human induced disaster the government in collaborations with other stakeholders should focus on the root causes in a participatory manner to bring community equity hence sustainable development.

The rule based multilateral trading system created by World Trade Organization (WTO) recognizes that in pursuing liberal and open trade policies, countries may have to use trade remedy measures such as anti-dumping countervailing or safeguard measures in cases where their domestic agricultural producers or manufacturing industries are hurt or injured by imports. However, such trade remedy measures can be applied only after investigations undertaken in accordance with the detailed rules laid down by the Agreements on Anti-dumping Practices (ADP), Subsidies and Countervailing Measures and on Safeguards, it is established that increased imports are causing injury to the domestic agricultural producers or industry. As a result, over sixty developing countries, most of which are least developed or countries at lower stages of development, which have not been able to establish such framework because of financial and other constraints are not able to make effective use of the rights which these Agreements provide. The paper suggests that in the situation, the least developed and other developing countries which have not been able to establish legal and institutional framework for applying all of the three trade remedy measures, should be permitted to apply only safeguard measures, which from the administrative point of view would require only modest staff, by adopting an Understanding. It is also in this context important to note that after the conclusion of the Doha Round, all developing countries would be able to apply to agricultural products, special safeguard measures if the price of imports falls below specified price trigger or their volume exceeds specified trigger, irrespective of whether the imported goods which are causing injury are being dumped or being subsidized. The need to apply safeguard measures in accordance with the provision of the Understanding clarifying the rules of the Safeguard Agreement would arise only in a few cases of manufactured products where domestic industries complain that the increased imports are causing serious injury to them.

No abstract