The first road safety coordination meeting of the United Nations has been held in Geneva, with financial support and participation from the FIA Foundation.
The Foundation provided support to enable representatives from each of the world’s UN regional commissions to attend the meetings in Geneva hosted by the World Health Organisation and the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE). Both meetings were attended by high level participants, including Dr Jeff Runge, Administrator of the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
On 29 September, representatives of the UN regional commissions: the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and for Western Asia (ESCWA) participated for the first time in a meeting with their colleagues of the UNECE Working Party on Road Traffic Safety. The representatives reported on the critical road safety situation in their regions and discussed ways to cooperate with WP1. The representatives were invited to attend as follow-up to the United Nations General Assembly Resolution of 14 April 2004, which invited the World Health Organisation, in close cooperation with the United Nations regional commissions, to act as a world-wide coordinator for road safety.
On 1 October, the World Health Organisation held a meeting with representatives of the UN Regional Commissions and international partners active in road safety to discuss ways in which they can contribute to and collaborate in the implementation of the UN General Assembly Resolution.
The WHO meeting approved the development of mechanisms to implement a host of initiatives such as a series of "how to" manuals that can be used by countries to facilitate implementation of road safety programmes, including how to plan, implement and evaluate speed control, seat-belt, helmet, and drinking and driving laws, some of the key factors identified by the World report on road traffic injury prevention. The meeting identified a number of other joint products needed to tackle the road traffic injury problem to maximize output and minimize the overlap of efforts across agencies.
"Since World Health Day, momentum and commitment to road safety have increased considerably at all levels of society," commented Dr Etienne Krug, Director of the WHO Department of Injuries and Violence Prevention. "This meeting is an opportunity to build on this momentum and commitment to plan several strong international initiatives which will help prevent hundreds of thousands of needless deaths and injuries on the roads."
David Ward, FIA Foundation Director General, described the meetings as a great success. “For the first time there is a coordinated approach within the UN, and the wider global road safety community, to tackling road traffic injuries. This process could be vital in extending contacts and transferring technical assistance to the parts of the world where it is most urgently needed. The FIA Foundation is proud to have played a role in ensuring the widest possible participation in these meetings.”