The African Road Safety Charter was adopted in 2016 on the 30th of January and was made available for signature and ratification by AU member states. The charter will come into force when at least 15 AU member states have been ratified.
The objectives of the African Road Safety Charter are mainly:
- To serve as a policy framework for road safety improvement in Africa
- To serve as an advocacy tool and instrument for road safety improvement on the continent aimed at facilitating the creation of an enabling environment to drastically reduce road traffic crashes.
Detailing these main objectives, the specific objectives are to:
- Facilitate the formulation of comprehensive road safety policies at country levels
- Speed-up implementation of national, regional and intercontinental road safety programmes
- Contribute to the coordination of road safety in the continent
- Promote better coordination of interventions by Development Partners in the road safety area
- Enhance the Private Sector, Civil Society Organisations, NGOs participation in road safety issues
- Promote the harmonization of the collection, treatment and dissemination of road safety data
The structure of the Africa Road Safety Charter has 31 articles. The governance of the charter (article 19) specifies that
- The highest political decision-making is a Conference States Parties
- The Conference of States Parties shall consist of Ministers responsible for Road Safety
- The Conference of Parties shall adopt rules of procedures for itself and for any subsidiary body it may establish
- The AUC will serve as the secretariat for the charter
As of October 2022, 20 member states are signatories, 11 have been ratified, 11 have deposited and 31 are non-signatory.
Upon establishment of the charter, it will provide the following benefits
- The charter will serve as mandate for the establishment of ARSO
- The Conference of the Parties will serve as high level advocacy body
- The ratification of the charter should serve as internal advocacy tool for officials
- Countries are obliged to set the fundamentals of road safety: national strategy, action plan, lead agency, data management system, standards, etc
- Countries will have a synergy action for Data management
Some of the expectations and questions for when the charter will enter into force
- Draft the rule of procedures for the Conference of the State Parties (CSP)
- Build and expert body to support the CSP
- Draft a 3-years action plan for the CSP
- Define a M&E (monitoring and evaluation) mechanism for the charter
- Engage a resource mobilization
- Could ARSO serve as the executing agency of the charter?
