On Wednesday 30 November 2022, the African Union and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa jointly hosted a consultative workshop for road safety in Africa, bringing together road safety experts and consultants all around the world to share their expertise and experiences.
Background
The UN general assembly adopted Resolution A/RES/74/299 “improving global road safety” in September 2020 and then proclaimed the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021-2030. Road safety continues to be a global challenge, and even after the first decade of action from 2011-2020, the numbers are still not encouraging. According to the 2018 WHO global status report on road safety, 1.3 million people die every year as a result of road crashes, and 20 to 50 million sustain serious injuries. The cost of road traffic injuries is estimated to cost low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) about 3% of their GDP (estimated at over 100 billion USD every year).
At the continental level, the African Union Specialized Technical Committee on Transport, Transcontinental and Interregional Infrastructure, and Energy (STC-TTIIE) meeting of Cairo 2019, the UNECA (UN Economic Commission for Africa) and the AUC (African Union Commission) formulated the Strategic Directions for Road Safety for Africa for the years after 2020. A draft of the Africa’s Road Safety Action Plan for the decade 2021-2030 prepared by UNECA and AUC in 2019. These documents were validated by African experts at the 4th African Road Safety Conference held in Addis Ababa in December 2019.
Taking note of these strategic directions for the decade 2021-2030, and the UN Resolution A/RES/74/299 “Improving global road safety”, the STC-TTIIE adopted an updated version of the “Strategic Directions for the post-2020 Decade: African common position” with the target to reduce road deaths and injuries by 50% by 2030 as well as to promote the implementation of the safe system approach in Africa’s road safety agenda. The STC-TTIIE also requested AUC to finalize the Action plan in collaboration with ECA, taking into consideration the Global Action Plan for the Second Decade of Action for Road Safety.
UNECA in collaboration with the AUC organized a three-hour continental meeting to popularize the continental agenda on road safety and discuss approaches for countries to develop and implement national road safety action plans that will enable them to meet the target to reduce road deaths by 50% by 2030.
Objectives
The consultative workshop had 5 objectives namely;
- Popularize Africa’s post-2020 Strategic Directions for Road Safety and the continent’s Road Safety Action plan for the Decade 2021-2030
- Share best practices with AU member states to mainstream the Global and Continental Action Plans in their national frameworks
- Define the fundamentals for improving road safety at the national level
- Stimulate the debate on the way forward after the African Road Safety Charter enters into full force
- Promote the African Road Safety Observatory (ARSO)
Attendance
The following entities were invited to participate in the meeting
- Heads of Road Safety Agencies
- National Data Coordinators of the African Road Safety Observatory
- African Union Commission (AUC)
- United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA)
- Regional Economic Communities (RECs)
- African Transport Policy Programme (SSATP)
- African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD)
- Specialized Agencies (WARSO, CLRT, AFRICATIP, ARMFA, AFRICARAP, NCAP, etc)
- World Bank, African Development Bank (AfDB) and Islamic Development Bank (IsDB)
- Corridor Management Institutions; and
- Other African partners as appropriate
