US President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev have established a joint Presidential Commission to develop common approaches to a range of major issues, including road safety.
Announced at their summit meeting in Moscow, the Bilateral Presidential Commission will be coordinated by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Working groups are to be established covering a wide range of issues, including security, the economy, science and environment. The Health working group, led by Russian Health Minister Tatyana Golikova and US Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, will work to ‘reduce deaths resulting from road accidents’ as an explicit element of its effort to promote healthy lifestyles. The US lost 37,000 people in road crashes in 2008, and the Russian Federation loses more than 40,000 each year.
According to a statement issued by the White House, the “U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Russian Ministry of Health and Social Development signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in the Field of Public Health and Medical Science. The Memorandum establishes a framework for deeper cooperation between these government institutions, including the U.S. Agency for International Development, scientific research institutions, including those of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, and other organizations of the two countries”.
FIA Foundation Director General David Ward welcomed the announcement: “This high level agreement signals growing recognition of the scale of the road injury epidemic. It demonstrates seriousness of intent to improve road safety in both the US and Russia. In the context of the forthcoming Moscow Ministerial on global road safety, this also demonstrates that there is strong support internationally for cooperation on road injury prevention, and the initiative taken by Presidents Obama and Medvedev, and by Minister Golikova and Secretary Sebelius, is an example of exactly the kind of political leadership that we have been calling for”.