| The Declaration also calls on the G8 summit in Germany this June to “recognize the urgent need to improve road safety in Africa, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa; systematically include road safety in the work of the Africa Infrastructure Consortium; the Sub Saharan Africa Transport Policy Programme; and in the development assistance programmes of the G8 nations to ensure that new and improved roads in Africa do not increase road traffic death and injuries.”
The theme of the UN African Road Safety Congress, held on 6-8 February, was ‘Road Safety and the Millennium Developments Goals: Reducing the Rate of Accident Fatality by Half by 2015’. Attended by over 200 delegates and 25 Ministers from across the continent, the Congress was jointly organised by the Economic Commission from Africa (ECA) and the World Health Organisation with support from the FIA Foundation, Swedish Development Agency (SIDA) and the UK’s Department for International Development.
According to the ECA, road crashes in Africa are commonly the second highest cause of death for the five to 44 age group and the economic cost is estimated at $10 billion or 2 per cent of GNP. In some African countries the road traffic fatality rate is 100 deaths per 10,000 vehicles (compared with a rate in Sweden of just 1.3 per 10,000). On current trends the fatality rate is expected to increase by as much as 80 per cent by 2020.
In a keynote address to the Congress, Ghana’s Deputy Minister of Transportation, Hon Magnus Opare-Asamoah, stressed the importance of the target set by African Ministers of Transport in 2005 to reduce the rate of accident fatalities by 2015. The Minister also described the major efforts now being made in Ghana to meet this goal.
The country’s National Road Safety Action Plan has started to achieve results with a 19 per cent reduction in fatalities between 2004 and 2005. Noting that there is no family in Ghana or Africa which has not been affected by road traffic accidents, Minister Opare-Asamoah insisted that the predicted 80-per-cent increase in traffic fatalities in Africa “must not become a reality”.
Click here to download the Ministerial Declaration of Road Safety Conference Accra |
