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GENEVA -- The World Health Organization, in its role as coordinator on road safety issues within the United Nations system, hosted a road safety collaboration meeting on the first of October 2004 to develop objectives, products and outcomes of the UN collaborative effort in road safety.

Dr Denis Aitken, Director of the Office of the WHO Director-General, opened the road safety collaboration meeting on 1st October 2004 and said that "these important steps taken at the global level are vital given the gravity of the burden caused by road traffic injuries in all countries of the world."

An important step towards the implementation of the coordination mandate given to WHO by the United Nations General Assembly took place on 1st October at WHO's headquarters in Geneva. On that day, over 50 participants representing 11 United Nations agencies (including all five UN Economic Commissions) and 14 other global road safety organizations discussed how they could collaborate on global road safety efforts.

The number of participants and the range of the sectors they represented (transport, health, safety, from both government and nongovernmental organisations) attested to the broad support that exists for this new effort. Participants were enthusiastic about the move towards collaboration on road safety, in order to maximize the effect of individual efforts, and minimize overlap. A main objective of the meeting was to identify concrete products and outcomes of the collaboration, and participants agreed upon the further development of a number of outputs that were proposed at the meeting;

1. the development of a series of "good practice" guidelines that would assist countries with the implementation of the recommendations of the World report on road traffic injury prevention. Although a number of guidelines might be produced in the future, it was agreed that initial efforts would focus on the main risk factors and protective factors identified in the World Report, i.e., speed, drinking and driving, seat belt use, and helmet use.
2. the development of a dynamic, web-based global road safety legislation database, based on previous UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) work in this area and with input from WHO and the other regional commissions.
3. the completion and updating of a series of resolutions on road traffic and road signs and signals adopted in the European region, which UNECE proposes to disseminate worldwide and promote as "good practice" guides.
4. a follow up meeting to the Stakeholder's Meeting was proposed for 2006, to be held possibly in Oman.
5. the establishment of an annual World Day of Remembrance for road crash victims.

Discussions also focused on identification of an overall mission for the Collaboration, lead agencies to take responsibility for product development, and timeframes for their production. The proceedings of the meeting may be found below.

Related links

United Nations Road Safety Collaboration meeting: Participant organizations

Source: WHO Road Safety