BACKGROUND
With more than 1.3 million people killed on roads every year, the road safety crisis in the world has
governments are not yet Contracting Parties. In particular, in the regions of Africa, Asia, and Latin
reached an alarming magnitude. In March 2010, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed the
America and the Caribbean, the number of Contracting Parties remains relatively low.
period 2011–2020 to be the Decade of Action for Road Safety. The General Assembly, in its “Resolution
on Improving Road Safety” (64/255) called for intensive work to reduce global road traffic fatalities
The African continent is experiencing unprecedented sustained economic growth. Africa has also
by increasing activities at the national, regional and global levels. It also requested the World Health
embraced economic transformation within its development agenda, with many countries already
Organization and the United Nations regional commissions, in cooperation with other partners in the
implementing medium to long term
United Nations Road Safety Collaboration and other stakeholders, to prepare a plan of action of the
development strategies that seek to elevate
Decade as a guiding document to support the implementation of its objectives. The overall goal of the
them from low- to middle- income status.
United Nations Global Plan for the Decade of Action for Road Safety is to stabilise, and then reduce, the
Investment in infrastructure, particularly roads,
forecast level of road traffic fatalities around the world.
partly account for the recent economic growth
of many African countries. Improvement in the
There are proven means of increasing road safety and reducing fatalities. They are embodied in the
coverage and quality of Africa’s roads may have
United Nations agreements and conventions on international transport. These agreements and
the unintended consequence of increasing the
conventions set standards for essential road safety components such as traffic rules, signs and
number of road crashes. Rapid economic growth
signals, and for criteria such as the safety level cars must meet, or what requirements are needed
is also resulting in an increase in car ownership,
to allow the carriage of dangerous goods by road in safe conditions.
which in turn is increasing the risk of road crashes. This, in essence, also exacerbates Africa’s challenging
road safety situation.
As international road transport grows, the United Nations road safety instruments increase in significance
as they provide a common framework for national standards and legislation on key road safety issues.
However, not all governments are familiar with the United Nations road safety instruments and many
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It is against this background that UNECE, UNECA and IARD gathered in Addis Ababa with international
experts and stakeholders from across Africa to hold in-depth discussions about road safety.
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