The World Health Organisation (WHO) is to be the global coordinator for UN activities on road safety, the UN General Assembly has agreed. In a historic debate at the UN in New York on 14th April, WHO was given the role of coordinating the response of the UN system to the global road safety crisis that is killing more than 1 million people each year.
Working with the UN’s regional commissions and agencies such as the World Bank and UNICEF WHO will provide the much needed focal point for improving the international community’s approach to road safety. The decision is also an achievement for the FIA Foundation which, since organising a major international conference on global road safety in February 2003, has pushed for a single ‘lead’ agency within the UN system. Two policy papers submitted by the Foundation to the UN during 2003 and 2004 promoted the idea of a lead agency and called for a role for UN regional commissions. Working with a coalition of UN agencies and other bodies in a global road safety steering group, under the leadership of Oman’s Ambassador to the UN, Fuad Al Hinai, the FIA Foundation has also encouraged support for a UN resolution which was finally approved by the UN General Assembly.