Experts Meet In Morocco Over Road Accidents

Transport experts and government technocrats meet this week to deliberate on how to curb road accidents around the World.  

According to the World Bank, road crashes claim nearly 1.2 million lives each year—around 3,300 every day—with children and young people disproportionately affected.   

Under the theme "Commit to Life," this conference will convene transport ministers, policymakers, civil society, and industry leaders to take stock of progress since the start of the decade, identify new priorities, and forge new commitments. 

It will be the first Ministerial Conference on Road Safety hosted on the African continent, highlighting the region's growing role in the global road safety agenda.   

Participants include ministers, heads of national road safety agencies, officials from all levels, parliamentarians, experts from the United Nations, civil society, business, academia and a range of related sectors.   At the Ministerial Conference, participants will learn from, and build on, these successes to spur more improvements. 

The Fourth Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety taking place in Marrakech, Morocco, on 18-20 February 2025 comes as the world approaches the midpoint of the United Nation’s Second Decade of Action for Road Safety (2021-2030).

The Second Decade of Action for Road Safety  outlined the urgency to meet the goal of halving road traffic fatalities and serious injuries by 2030.  This target, embedded within the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 3.6), reflects a global commitment to addressing one of the most preventable yet persistent public health crises of our time.

Some experts have noted that halving global road fatalities within a decade is a very ambitious goal but insist going by every road death a tragedy unto itself, it is something the governments must strive for.

The low and middle-income countries bear the heaviest burden of all road traffic accidents in the world, they account for 85% of the burden. 

The conference comes just few days after the Ministry of Works and Transport gazzeted the new Speed Limit Regulations of 2024. The new regulations take into account global best practices of speed management at the national level.They replace the Speed Limit Regulations of 2004.

According to the Uganda Road Safety Review Report, Road Traffic Accident (RTA) deaths stand at 28.9 per 100,000 populations placing it among the top-ranking countries.

According to the 2020 statistics, 36% of the total road crashes registered that year were as a result of over speeding. Over speeding is indeed the leader when causes of road accidents in Uganda are discussed, especially for fatal ones. 

However, this can be curbed so we reduce the number of people that perish in the hands of over speeding drivers. According to research, reducing speed by 5% can reduce number of fatalities by 30%. It is therefore advised to keep and follow speed limits of 30km/hr in developed centers as well as 80km/hr on highways.

Traffic injuries are among the top ten causes of mortality in the country. On average Uganda loses 10 people per day in road traffic accidents, which is the highest level in East Africa.

The first UN decade of action for road safety—which spanned 2011 to 2020 and had the same objective of halving fatalities and serious injuries within the decade—fell short of achieving its target, despite notable progress in many countries. The lessons learned from that period have laid a strong foundation for renewed efforts.

Hosted by the Government of Morocco and the World Health Organization, with the theme of "Commit to Life", the summit will bring leaders and experts together to accelerate action towards the Sustainable Development Goals’ target of halving global road deaths by 2030.

Halfway through the United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021-2030, and with just five years left to achieve the Global Goals for Sustainable Development, participants will assess progress, identify priorities, share knowledge, forge alliances, and advance commitments to prevent deaths and injuries on the world’s roads.

Focus areas include road safety governance, emerging trends in mobility, financing, the private sector, road traffic injury data, connections with other related Sustainable Development Goals and as the first Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety ever to be held on the African continent, a focus on Africa.

Some statistics suggest global road deaths are falling, slightly. More than half of all UN Member States report declining deaths in recent years, and 10 countries halved deaths in 10 years, showing that a 50% reduction is possible.