Global leaders endorse new declaration to reduce road deaths

Leaders from around 50 countries made new national commitments to advance road safety at the Fourth Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety hosted by the Kingdom of Morocco and the World Health Organization [WHO] in Marrakech, Morocco, earlier this month.

Road crashes kill nearly 1.2 million people each year globally, more than two deaths per minute, and are the leading cause of death among children and young people aged 5-29 years.

Ministers from 100 countries endorsed the Marrakech Declaration for Global Road Safety which calls on governments to make road safety a political priority, ensure sustained funding and advance actions to achieve the goal of halving road deaths by 2030 as set out in the United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021-2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals. 

Key commitments made at the conference include:

• Thailand’s pledge to bring road deaths down to 12 per 100,000 people by 2027.
• Bangladesh will enact the country’s first national road safety law.
• Saudi Arabia will update the country’s national road safety strategy.
• Colombia will ensure more cities have speed limits of 50kmh and 30kmh.
• Guinea will ratify the African Charter on Road Safety and align regulations with international standards.
• Cote d’Ivoire aims to increase helmet-wearing among motorcyclists to 90% by 2027.
• The United Kingdom will produce its first national road safety strategy in over a decade. 
• The European Union unveiled several new commitments, with a strong focus on projects in Africa.

The Marrakech Declaration calls for safety to be a primary concern in all road infrastructure planning and related policies, laws and regulations. It calls for greater coordination across government ministries, including health, transport and the environment. 

The declaration urges governments to adopt policies and infrastructure that advance safe, green and equitable mobility, such as walking, cycling and public transport. It recognises that safe and accessible mobility drives equitable economic growth across society. 

The declaration also calls for more cross-border knowledge-sharing, technical support and technology transfer, and to advance research into emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI). It highlights the need to work with civil society and academia.