Latin American Declaration Backs Make Roads Safe

Road safety leaders from 21 Latin American and Caribbean countries have backed the key aims of the Make Roads Safe campaign in a bid to reduce the region’s 122,000 road deaths each year.

President of Costa Rica, Oscar Arias, signs the 'Declaration of San Jose' while Karla Gonzalez, Minister of Public Works and Transport for Costa Rica, looks on.

Children take part in a Make Roads Safe demonstration in San Jose, Costa Rica.

Delegates of the Latin American and Caribbean Road Safety Stakeholder’s Forum, hosted by the President of Costa Rica, Oscar Arias, approved a ‘Declaration of San Jose’ which calls on development banks to commit at least 10% of their road infrastructure investment to road safety, and also calls for the Global Road Safety Facility to be fully funded – the two key demands of the Make Roads Safe campaign.

The Declaration, adopted by the 185 delegates at the Forum, also calls on all nations in the region to implement the recommendations of the WHO/World Bank ‘World Report on Road Traffic Injury Prevention’ and agrees to establish a regional organization in support of national road safety action plans. Key regional actors including the UN Economic Commission for Central and Latin America, the Pan American Health Organisation, the Inter-American Development Bank and civil society groups such as member motoring clubs of the FIA pledged to support the aims of the Declaration.

President Arias, in an article published in the Washington Post timed to coincide with the San Jose meeting, pledged his support for the main recommendations of the Commission for Global Road Safety’s Make Roads Safe report. “We the people of this region have the same right to safety as those in other parts of the world. I am committed to promoting road safety because I know it will benefit Costa Rica and every other country in our region”, explained President Arias.

In a special message to the San Jose Forum, Luis Moreno, President of the Inter-American Development Bank, also offered his support. “We must not miss this chance to develop a plan of common actions and priorities and to set concrete targets for reducing the number of people killed and injured in traffic crashes. We must act promptly to have a quick and visible impact in both the short- and long-term.”

Prince Michael of Kent, a member of the British Royal Family and patron of an International Road Safety Awards scheme, also attended the Forum and offered a strong endorsement of the Make Roads Safe campaign’s messages, saying “The new Global Funding arrangements recently announced by The World Bank will provide a focal point for donors, particularly the G8 governments, so that they can add value to all important capacity building projects. The Make Road Safe report from the Commission for Global Road Safety provides compelling arguments why the international community should be financing the World Report’s recommendations”.

Text of the Declaration of San Jose

We the undersigned:

1. Declare that it is both urgent and important that all the nations of the Latin American and Caribbean region work together to stop the growing epidemic of deaths and injuries on our roads. Road safety must become a health, transportation, law enforcement, education, and development priority for our nations and the region.
2. Urge all nations of the region to implement the recommendations of the World Report and to use this as the framework for addressing road safety nationally, regionally, and globally.
3. Urge that resources be committed to road safety commensurate with the need and magnitude of the problem. Development banks should lead the way by requiring that at least 10% of their investments for infrastructure development be applied to road safety programs.
4. Urge that resources be committed to the World Bank Global Road Safety Facility by the industrialized nations so that the Facility can reach a total investment of at least (US)$300,000,000 by 2015 so that there will be funds available to the countries in the LAC region to develop road safety management capacity, catalyse increased investment, and accelerate knowledge transfer.
5. Commit to work together to develop a regional committee that will:
   • represent all relevant sectors of government, civil society, and the private sector,
   • promote a region-wide approach to road safety,
   • organize a region-wide information system,
   • promote harmonization of laws for road and vehicle safety, and
   • share road safety information and best practices across the region.
6. Commit to mobilize the active participation of regional ministers of transportation, health, and law enforcement and others to set and achieve measurable targets for road safety and traffic-injury prevention in the states of the region.

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