The new global Ministerial ‘Moscow Declaration’ on road safety has given a crucial high level political boost to the world’s most neglected humanitarian crisis, but the UN must now be called upon to back a substantial commitment to a Decade of Action if millions of lives are to be saved, the Make Roads Safe campaign said on 20 November 2009.
Governments around the world must take momentum from the Ministerial, taking the agenda forward to the UN General Assembly in March 2010 where a Decade of Action could be agreed.
The Make Roads Safe campaign, which first proposed a Decade of Action for Road Safety, is now calling for a firm and substantial global commitment to be made if words are to translate into action to save five million lives and prevent 50 million injuries from 2011-2015.
Lord Robertson, chairman of the Make Roads Safe campaign said: “This unprecedented global Ministerial is a major step forward, and an acknowledgement by the international community of the seriousness of this killer epidemic. But a coordinated and resourced global plan for a Decade of Action must be developed and agreed at the UN. We must not lose the momentum. Millions of lives are at stake over the next 10 years.”
According to the Make Roads Safe Decade of Action proposal, five million lives can be saved and fifty million serious injuries prevented if, with UN agreement, Governments collectively committed to a target of reducing the forecast 2020 level of road deaths by 50%.
During the Decade the international community should invest in a $300 million action plan to catalyse traffic injury prevention and re-focus national road safety policies and budgets. Interim targets and strategies should be established to promote measures such as 100% helmet and seat belt use in every country by 2020, together with other road safety interventions.
Notes to editors
Contact:
Avi Silverman, Make Roads Safe campaign.
00447967229374
a.silverman@makeroadssafe.org