Nearly half of all countries in the WHO African Region have committed to strengthening reporting on road crash fatalities, with an eye on meeting the global target of halving road crash deaths by 2030 as set out in the Global Plan for the United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety, 2021-2030.
The ‘Dakar Declaration,’ adopted in principle by 21 African countries after the first African sub-regional conference on the implementing the Global Plan for Road Safety in Dakar, Senegal, includes actions to enhance data capture, analysis, sharing and coordination to shape better road safety policies.
During the three-day event in early March that was hosted the National Road Safety Agency of Senegal (ANASER) and co-sponsored by WHO, Senegal’s Transport Minister committed to ratifying the African Union [AU] Charter for Road Safety; a crucial pan-African political framework for action and collaboration.
The AU Road Safety Charter will provide a legal and policy framework for road safety on the continent. It aims to strengthen regional and national road safety policies and actions, boost coordination, and enhance the role of business and civil society. Four more countries must ratify the charter for it to come into force, and a number of countries expressed a willingness to sign up.
The conference brought representatives for 21 African governments, regional bodies and civil society organizations together to address key issues in implementing the Global Plan for the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021-2030. This included the role of lead road safety agencies, legislation and regional policies, and strengthening data systems to improve policies and actions.
The Dakar Declaration, currently being finalized, is in line with the work of the African Road Safety Observatory, which works to harmonize road safety related indicators across the continent. It features the principles of the ‘Safe Systems’ approach to road safety, which recognises that road transport is a complex system with interconnecting elements that all affect each other, and that only tackling these issues holistically will lead to zero deaths.