Interactive multi-stakeholder hearing as part of the preparatory process for the high‑level meeting on improving global road safety - General Assembly, 80th session

Silent pandemic is right in front of us happening on our roads and highways daily.
Indeed, the numbers are incredible with around 1.2 million people being killed and with over 50 million people injured on road accidents every single year.
That is one person injured almost every second.
Now and now and now.
Today, road crashes remain the leading cause of death, especially of children and young people aged five to 29.
No country is immune from this crisis, whether large or small, develop or developing.
It affects every society, every economy, and far too many families.
For this reason, member states will convene a high level meeting on improving global road safety on July 20th and 21st.
But road safety is not only solely the responsibility of governments, it requires a whole of society approach.
Stakeholders bring essential expertise, lift experience, innovation, and adveracy to this issue.
They help strengthen the evidence base that informs policy making while also playing a critical role in implementing solutions on the ground.
Today's multi stakeholder meeting is therefore a vital part of the preparatory process for the high level meeting we are having on the 20th and 21st of July.
This stakeholder meetings prepares this high level meeting because it brings together essential expertise, lift experience, innovation, and advocacy to this issue.
It helps strengthen the evidence base that informs policy making while also playing a critical role in implementing solutions on the ground.
Today's multi stakeholder meeting is therefore a vital part of the preparatory process for the high level meeting.
It is an opportunity to hear directly from NGOs advocating for safer roads and speed management, academics and experts supporting capacity building and trainings, victims and survivors of road crashes like Vivian Perrone, who is with us here today, the private sector and actors building safer roads and infrastructure, philanthropic organization, founding awareness and education initiatives, and from youth representations, who will shape the next generation of policy and action.
I thank you all.
I thank all stakeholders for their participation and contributions which will not only directly feed into the high level meeting in July, but also promote a whole of society approach to improve road safety at the national, regional, and global level.
This process begins with today's hearing and is an opportunity which is important to accelerate implementation of the 2030 agenda, particularly targets 3.6 and 11.2, as well as the global plan for the decade of action for road safety.
More broadly, road safety cuts across all three pillars of the UN.
It's a matter of human well being and security.
It's an economic issue given the immense social and financial cost of traffic accidents and it's linked to sustainability through safer, cleaner and more accessible transport systems.
Dear excellencies, dear stakeholders, today's hearings reflect the United Nations at its best, bringing together governments, civil society, experts, the private sector, and affected communities and families to address the shared global challenge through dialogue and cooperation.
Because lasting solutions can only be achieved when all voices are heard and when all sectors work together in common purpose.
In this regard, let us use this process to build safer roads, safer communities, and ultimately save lives for all of us.
By this, I would like to give the floor now to our distinguished speakers.
First, we will hear a video statement from the Director General of the World Health Organization, doctor Tedros Adham Jabrav sus, Director of the WHO.
Please start the video.
Her Excellency, Aala Berbck, President of the UN General Assembly, special envoy, Jean Todd, Excellencies, dear colleagues and friends.
We have come a long way together in making the world's roads safer for everyone.
2011-2020, 35 countries reduce road traffic by at least 30% and ten countries cut this in half.
We're starting to turn the tide, but not fast enough.
Every year, 1.2 million people still lose their lives on the world's roads.
None are necessary or acceptable.
The one place we do need more speed is in delivering the targets in the decade of action for road safety.
We need road systems designed for people, not cars where safety is always the priority.
This meeting is vital for shaping the high level meeting and for accelerating change.
We need a whole of government and a whole of society approach, and we must strengthen in stational coordination and data systems with secure financing.
Road safety is key to sustainable development, which means this is a job for every sector.
That includes health, transport, climate and infrastructure, urban planning, and education.
We will only achieve the goal of halving road and injuries by 2030 if we work together.
Civil society, academia, and the private sector also have crucial roles to play.
Everyone who sets out on a journey should reach their destination safely.
Thank you all for your commitment to making sure that they do.
I thank you.
I thank the Secretary-General, the Director General for the World Health Organization.
I now give the floor to Mr.
Jean Todd, Secretary-General Special Envoy for Road Safety, who will deliver a video statement as well.
Her Excellency, Alena B, President of the United Nations General Assembly.
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, dear Collins.
We're halfway through the decade of action for road safety.
The target is clear to have road deaths and injuries by 2030.
But today, road crashes still claim 1.2 million lives each year.
Tens of millions are injured.
The leading cause of death for children and young people ages five to 29.
The numbers show that far too little has been done.
In most places, road crashes remain what they call a silent pandemic.
At the high level meeting in July, we must close the gap between commitments made and reality on the road.
The goal is not to produce another declaration, it is to save lives.
We know the most severe killers on the road speeding, infant driving, and failure to use a helmet seat belt or trying restraint.
When member states take concrete action to address this risk, progress follows.
We also know that road safety can rely only on individual behavior.
It depends on systems that protect people even when mistakes are made.
This is why collective action at the multi level is so important.
Member States from all regions are working together through the UNC Inland Transport Committee to make vehicles safer by design, by strengthening UN regulation on seat belts, child rests, pedestrian and motorcycle safety, distracted driving, and rather assistant technology.
At the same time, countries are aligning traffic rules to address speeding, distraction, and the protection of vulnerable road users turning the safe system approach into enforceable laws.
Together, these efforts show that countries already have powerful tools at their disposal.
The challenge now is full and effective implementation.
This global cooperation is already delivering results at the national level.
For example, in 2024, Rwanda introduced new helmet city stand up with support from UN Road Safety Fund and began strict enforcement of helmet use.
That year, Rwandan road crash deaths dropped by 50%.
In Jordan, new chain restraint requirements were adopted in national law, supported by awareness campaigns.
Chin restraint usage increased by 10%.
Beta Pratt in Armenia contributed to an 18% reduction in repeat speed violations in the van.
Cambodian workplace road safety policies now protect more than 100,000 garment workers after data showed sales risk in daily commuting, including low amas.
I commend these initiatives and I encourage all countries to take bold action on these areas.
As the UN Secretary-General road safety, I support an annual global road safety week with each day focused on a different risk factor and the urgent need to do more.
Government must make road safety a priority.
Infrastructure should protect people, reduce congestion, and make mobility safer for all.
But governments alone cannot carry the full weight of global action.
The private sector has a critical role to play as innovators, investors, and strategic partners.
International organization must raise awareness and support countries where the burden is highest.
In partnership across the sector are crucial to finance, implement, and sustain the solutions that saves lives.
My office is collaborating with global celebrity and the advertising company CDC to bring road safety messaging focused on the five risk factors to over southern cities across 80 countries by the end of this year.
I'm also working with the International Olympic Committee to make road safety a priority for millions of people who travel to play and watch road.
The ambition and creativity of our solutions must match the scale of the crisis.
Two months from now, member states will come together in New York.
The outcome of this meeting cannot only be words.
Children, families, and communities depend on serious measurable results.
I count on you.
Thank you.
I thank the Special Envoy for Road Safety.
Thank you, Jean Todd.
I now give the floor to miss Vivienne Perron, co chair of International Road Victims Partnership.
Please, miss Perron.
Thank you very much.
Good morning.
Thank you.
Good morning.
It's an honor for me to be here.
24 years ago, precisely in the month of May, I received that phone call that nobody wants to answer.
My 14-year-old son, Kevin, was lying on an avenue in Buenos Aires Argentina because a 20-year-old driver who was driving at double the speed limit allowed jumped a red light, ran over my son, and escaped from the scene.
Since then, I've been carrying his image wherever I go, and I've been carrying his absence, his agonizing absence in my heart.
On the 8th of May, Kevin passed away.
It's still hard for me to say that he died.
Since that day, I've met other families that have gone through the same loss.
Here in the room with us is Donna.
Today we'll also be having Rochelle and 1.2 million people every year.
There's a Kevin, a Darren, an Aaron, a Chaz, a Stratus, a Marina, a loss every 24 seconds.
The loss of a child is the ultimate catastrophe for any family.
The sudden and violent nature of these deaths makes the grief nearly impossible to endure.
My daughter was only three, my other son, 16.
Both struggled immensely to move forward with their lives.
My husband at age 50, died of a fatal heart attack just one week before the trial began.
My two children had lost their brother and father.
We're not just discussing the loss of 1.2 million lives every year.
We're talking about the never ending ripples of devastation, devastation that leads to eternal pain, financial problems, and psychological distress.
When the crashes shadow our families, we're forced to find a way to survive.
I had to continue teaching at the very same school Kevin attended, his classroom right next to mine, his desk sitting empty.
We're also thrust into the legal proceedings that follow these sudden unnatural deaths, processes about which we initially know very little.
We're the only participants who did not choose to be there.
The judges, prosecutors, lawyers, and even the criminal who struck our loved ones made choices that led them to that courtroom.
We did not.
Our loved ones did not.
You have heard and read about our stories many times.
Why can't we save these lives and prevent these entirely avoidable collisions? What's missing that would prevent the pain that tears through us for the remainder of our lives? We have to collaborate and combine our abilities, knowledge, and experience.
We're all working on road safety, but many times the small grassroot NGOs are excluded.
We may not have a massive staff, but we possess the passion.
This is why I want to thank the Global Alliance for including small NGOs, but everyone here today must consider joining our efforts.
We must work together, the private and public sectors, government offices, and NGOs alike.
What else is missing? Justice for our grieving families.
Justice does not mean long prison sentences.
Often the individual who killed our loved one is back behind the wheel just days later.
Why is post crash response neglected? Why is justice not a primary focus in these high level meetings? We don't need to clarify that we're not seeking revenge.
I wouldn't be here if I were.
We're asserting that a driver who chooses to break the law must face consequences beyond the act of taking a life.
If not, only victims suffer the consequences.
Society must see that respecting the law is fundamentally different from breaking it.
Respecting the law means saving a life.
So we should work together and include post crash as primary focus.
Post crash response means managing the terrible aftermath, supporting bereaved families, conducting thorough police investigations, and navigating criminal or civil court proceedings.
It means demonstrating to the rest of society the consequences of these crashes so they may be avoided, saving lives and preventing lifelong injuries.
At the International Road Victims Partnership, an association of approximately 160 NGOs from every region of the world, we work to support the victims of road collisions and advocate for their rights.
In Argentina, we've introduced our fifth project in Congress.
Our initiatives have changed road safety laws by introducing serious offenses.
We now have laws defending victims' rights, lower blood alcohol limits, and prohibition against street racing, plus a helpline 247.
However, we could have accomplished so much more if we had joined forces with the private sector or international road safety Foundations, but we were not listened to.
Appropriate laws, education, infrastructure, traffic law enforcement, the preservation of evidence, and the timely sharing of data are all vital requirements.
It is essential for us to work together on every one of these aspects.
Let us start yesterday, no more bereaved families.
I'm speaking on their behalf.
We've made a life decision to change our reality in honor of our loved ones so that other families do not have an empty place at the table for the rest of their lives.
Today, I am here in honor of those whose lives were suddenly ripped from them.
I am here in the name of their families and the small NGOs, the NGOs that possess the passion, the experience, and the profound pain of a road loss.
I am here because even though my son was just one of the 3,700 who lost their lives that day, was he is my son.
He loved life and he wanted to live.
So please, no more Kevins.
Thank you.
Dear miss Baron, thank you very much for sharing your story and I thank everybody who has children, at least it's for me the same if you imagine what you have been through.
I thank you very much for speaking from your heart, not only in honoring your own son, Kevin, but as you mentioned, many, many others who have lost their family members and their children as well.
And your story and your engagement should encourage all of us to not wait but to act.
Thank you very much.
We have heard the last speaker for the opening segment.
I now invite the moderator and panelists to take their seats at the podium for the panel discussion number one.
Thank you.
Would you mind just nobody help you We are waiting to change our panels.
Excellencies, distinguished panelists, colleagues, it is my pleasure to chair the first panel on strengthening multisectoral Coordination for road safety, drawing on best practices and lessons from countries that have successfully reduced road traffic, death, and injuries.
Today's hearing is part of the preparatory process for the high level meeting on improving global road safety to be held in July 2026.
Its purpose is to listen carefully to member states, stakeholders, panelists, and participants from the floor and together concrete inputs that can help inform the decisions of heads of state and government and member states at the high level meeting, including its progress declaration.
This comes at a critical moment.
Road traffic endures remain an urgent public health development and equity challenge.
Each year road crash claim more than 1.2 million lives.
They remain the leading cause of death among children and young people aged five to 29 years and 92% of road traffic deaths occur in low and middle income countries.
The international community has already agreed on the direction.
The second decade of action for road safety, the global plan, the 2022 Political Declaration, and the Marrakesh Declaration adopted at the fourth Global Ministerial Conference on road safety last year, all point to the need to scale up and accelerate implementation.
The challenge before us is how to move from commitments to sustained delivery.
These requires strong national leadership, effective agencies, coordination across sectors and levels of government and clear accountability for results.
In this panel, I invite speakers to share concrete lessons and actionable proposals.
What has worked? What institutional arrangements have made a difference? How can leadership, coordination, and accountability be organized so that evidence based measures are implemented at a scale and commitments become measurable reduction in deaths and serious injuries.
I look forward to hearing from you, the panelists and from the floor.
And from member states and all participants.
Before giving the floor for the panelists, I would like to inform participants that those wishing to speak during the interactive discussion are kindly requested to scan the QR code displayed on the screen or approach the Secretariat colleagues if you are not able to scan the code.
Representatives from member states, UN system, and observers are invited to press the microphone button.
Participants may indicate they wish to speak starting now.
They will be called to speak after the presentations by the panelists once the floor is opened for the interactive discussions.
Now, I would like to invite our first panelist, miss Lotte Brnum, Executive Director of Global Alliance of NGO for Road Safety.
Miss Slate, what accountability mechanisms are needed to ensure governments and system designers deliver on road safety commitments.
Thank you very much.
Thank you for the invite to be here.
Thank you to Vivian for the very powerful words that reminds us why we're here.
I think the NGO I'm representing the NGOs community with the Global Alliance of NGOs for road safety.
We're 400 NGOs in more than 100 countries and one of our hopes for the decade of action was that it was going to be a decade for accountability.
Now we are midway.
There has been a lot to celebrate, but there's also a lot that has not happened.
There's been too many symbolic gestures.
Um, too little systemic effects, and commitments without accountability, that's just words, that's just aspirations.
We see far too many unsafe streets, far too many places where speed is too high.
We see products such as helmets that are still unsafe and yet we know how to do all these things.
We know how to build urban cities that are safe and livable.
We know what speed will prevent people from being killed, and we know how to produce helmets that are safe.
So this is not a knowledge gap, this is an implementation gap.
And in the preparations for this meeting, we asked the NGOs in our community, how do we ensure that this moment in time really becomes a significant moment and one that will lead to this change? And they talked about three things.
They talked about fund the work, prove that it's happening and be sure that communities validate it.
Fund the work, finance what's evidenced.
We know what works, we know how to build these safe streets.
We know speed that prevents people from being killed, and we know how to produce helmets that will protect a rider if they are in a crash.
And I think that the area around helmets is really such a painful illustration of a gap where we have failed so tremendously.
We have been really good at getting people to wear helmets, but yet helmets are still sold that are unsafe and affordable helmets, it's much easier to get an unsafe helmet, which is than it is to get a safe one.
The other area, prove what's happening around accountability is that we need targets to be time bound.
We need to public reporting.
You cannot manage what is not measured.
We need reporting on outcomes and on activities, and this is not an option.
It has to be institutionalized and it has to be transparent.
And only spent on what is evidenced.
Then we need communities to validate that it's happening.
This is about inclusion of NGOs in decision making.
NGOs are the ears and the eyes and the boots on the ground and it's very important to invite them in.
This also has to be institutionalized.
NGOs are part of the equation and they're the ones who keep it at the forefront like Vivian when she's talking about her story.
We should not listen to those stories.
It should be at the forefront of our minds.
So just one last thing I want to say is that we're here today at the midway of the decade, and again, our hope had been that accountability was going to be the era of accountability, but we need to ensure that this continues beyond 30.
We have a target to reach by 30, but it's been very, very hard work for us to get where we are today even though we have not done as much as we could and we have not reached the targets that we wanted.
We still have a lot to do, and it's very important that it keeps on the forefront.
We need to integrate road safety in the future, beyond 30 without diluting it, and there has to be a vision that all journeys are safe.
We still need that hook.
We still need something beyond 30 that brings road safety at the forefront of our agenda.
Thank you.
I thank miss Brnun for her insightful reflection.
I now give the floor to Mr.
Piyush Tivari, CEO of Save Life Foundation.
What should governments and partners learn about coordination, accountability, and scaling implementation? Madam Moderator, excellencies and distinguished colleagues.
I come from India, which unfortunately accounts for 15% of global road crash fatalities.
I also come to this issue following deep personal loss.
In 2016, the 95 kilometer Mumbai Puna expressway in India recorded 151 road crash fatalities in a single year.
Today, that number has fallen by 63%.
But Mumbai Pune is not where the story ends.
It is where the story began.
Over the past decade, Save Live Foundation in partnership with the government of India has scaled this approach across 61 highway corridors and 53 districts across 18 states in India, serving over 88 million commuters annually.
By early next year, this is expected to expand to 100 highways and 100 districts across the country.
From this scale of implementation, three lessons have emerged.
On coordination, road safety improves when coordination exists where implementation actually happens, the district, the city, the corridor.
Districts in India matter because nearly two thirds of road deaths in India occur outside of national highways.
Our fatality district program places a single accountable authority over police, road agencies, and health systems with mandatory monthly reviews against fatality data.
The lesson from my experience is unambiguous.
Coordination must sit at the smallest administrative unit where roads, police, and hospitals actually converge, not just at national lead agencies.
On accountability, accountability requires three things, public time bound fatality reduction targets, regular reviews against real world crash data, and a single named officer responsible for outcomes.
Where this discipline has been applied, results have followed.
In UP, India's largest state with over 260 million people, the government pushed accountability even further down to the police station level, assigning officers responsibility for fatality reduction within their jurisdictions.
In the first quarter of 2026, the state has recorded an 11% reduction in road crash fatalities compared to the same period last year.
In Nagpur District, where the same process was applied, fatalities declined by more than 30%.
These outcomes are not exceptional.
They are administratively reproducible.
What changes is whether road safety is treated as an advisory intent or as an administrative practice.
Finally, on scaling, scaling requires institutionalization, not endless pilots.
Most road safety failures today are not failures of evidence.
They are failures of embedding.
Lasting reductions happen only when solutions are integrated into public systems, public financing, and government accountability structures.
When the role of organizations like Save Live Foundation is designed to diminish over a period of time, not expand.
Last year, for every dollar that saved life invested in the issue, we unlocked at least $66 in public financing for road safety.
A 50% reduction by 2030 is achievable.
Road crashes are not random events.
They are predictable systems failures, and as we all know, systems can be redesigned to save lives.
Thank you very much.
I thank Mr.
Tavaria for his remarks.
I now give the floor to Mr.
Abdul Gafur Bachchani, associate professor at Johns Hopkins University.
What are the most common capacity and data barriers that prevent LMICs from implementing effective road safety measures? Thank you.
It's a pleasure to be here and I'll start with just broadly framing the issue and then get into some of the specifics.
Because for too long, as we've already heard this morning, road safety has been treated as a siloed transport issue.
That framing is both incomplete and counterproductive.
The deaths we are seeing are not just random events or incidents.
They are predictable outcomes of system design failures, weak governance, fragmented mandates, inadequate data, and investments that pass that flow past road safety rather than through it.
When 92% of the road traffic deaths occur in low and middle income countries, precisely where governance, data systems, and implementation capacity are most constrained, we can really not solve this with a one dimensional response.
The next gains, therefore, for road safety will come from sectors that have not historically seen themselves as part of the road system.
Even though their decisions fundamentally shape road safety outcomes, urban planners determine whether streets are walkable, connected, and safe for all road users.
Health ministries build the surveillance systems that make injury burdens and risk factors visible.
Climate negotiators and transport planners shape whether active mobility and public transport that prioritize the national commitments.
Finance ministries make the budget decisions that are either sustaining enforcement, infrastructure, and trauma care systems or leave them chronically under resourced.
Road safety therefore is not just a standalone sectoral issue.
It is deeply, deeply interconnected with public health, urban development, climate policy, education, governance, and economic planning.
In many cases, road safety is a major co benefit hiding in plain sight across all these different agendas.
The opportunity cost of failing to recognize these linkages is measured not only in fragmented policy, but really in lives lost and injuries sustained on our roads.
So today, I really want to focus on four things that I believe are foundational to accelerating progress.
The first is strengthening data and surveillance systems so that countries can really see and measure the problem.
We need to generate context specific implementation evidence about what works for low and middle income country contexts.
We need to build individual and institutional capacity to translate knowledge into action, and we need to make the structural case for multi sectoral coordination as the delivery mechanism for all of these above.
The most common barriers when it comes to preventing road traffic injuries in low and middle income countries and preventing them from implementing effective road safety measures are persistent gaps in both data systems, individual, and institutional capacity.
These barriers are all deeply interconnected.
Data without the institutional ability to analyze and act on it rarely changes any outcomes while capacity without the data to set priorities and measure impact lacks direction.
Together, these weaknesses undermine government's ability to one, identify risks, to allocate resources effectively, to implement evidence based interventions, and to sustain progress over time.
On the data side, the most fundamental challenge is the absence of reliable and integrated data systems.
In many low and middle income countries, the agencies responsible for generating road safety data, the police, health, transport, and insurance systems operate in silos with little coordination or interoperability between them.
This fragmentation leads to widespread under reporting, misclassification of road traffic deaths and injuries.
As a result, governments cannot often determine with precision how many people are dying on their roads, where these crashes occur, under what conditions, or which risk factors are driving the burden.
So when the scale and distribution of the problem remain invisible, road safety struggles to attract sustained political attention or budgetary priority.
Even in countries where aggregate national statistics exist, disaggregate data is often lacking.
Many countries cannot reliably identify which groups are most at risk, particularly vulnerable road users such as pedestrians, motorcyclists, and cyclists who account for disproportionate share of the road traffic fatalities in low and middle income countries.
Without mode specific and location specific data, interventions can really not be effectively targeted towards the populations and environments where risk is the highest.
This means that even when governments are willing to invest and international partners are ready to support, the evidence base cannot reliably guide them on what interventions are most likely to succeed.
Another major limitation is a lack of reliable exposure data and denominators.
Risk really cannot be properly quantified without understanding how much different groups are exposed to different traffic environments.
Yet many low and middle income countries lack reliable estimates of, for example, vehicle kilometers traveled, pedestrian volumes, cycling activity, or travel patterns by road type and mode.
This makes it difficult to compare risks across settings, prioritize interventions, or measure progress accurately.
A further and often underappreciated barrier is the lack of context specific research evidence.
The overwhelming majority of road safety intervention studies have been carried out in high income countries, despite the fact that most road traffic deaths occur in low and middle income countries.
Policymakers in S San Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia are therefore expected to adapt this evidence generated in very different contexts with different vehicle fleets, different infrastructure conditions, enforcement systems, travel behaviors, and resource constraints.
This limits confidence in which interventions are most likely to succeed locally and can weaken both policy design and implementation.
The data limitations are compounded by a serious capacity constraint.
Our own multi country research at the Johns Hopkins University examining what drives progress in road safety found a consistent pattern.
Human resource capacity, technical expertise, and financing must all be present simultaneously.
Remove any one of them and implementation stalls.
In most an minicom countries, all three are under strain at once.
Importantly, capacity gaps exist in two distinct but interconnected areas, the capacity to generate knowledge and the capacity to then utilize knowledge.
Many low and middle income countries lack the institutional and technical capability to produce locally relevant evidence, as well as the systems, professional structures, and organizational capacity needed to translate existing evidence into sustained implementation and policy action.
Institutional and organizational capacity is equally important and equally neglected.
High staff turnover routinely erases institutional memory, forcing agencies to repeatedly rebuild expertise from scratch.
In many settings, there are limited systems for knowledge retention, mentorship, interagency coordination, or long term strategic planning.
Institutions therefore remain heavily dependent on individuals rather than resilient organizational structures.
Addressing these barriers requires more than isolated technical assistance projects.
Low and middle income countries need sustained investments in integrated data systems, routine surveillance, and institutional mechanisms that reduce under reporting and improve data quality.
At the same time, there is need to build long term research and implementation capacity, as well as peer learning networks that enable countries to generate local evidence, adapt global knowledge to local realities, and sustain expertise across political cycles and staff transitions.
The goal is that institutions that can generate locally evidence and effectively apply existing knowledge, adapting global evidence to local contexts, embedding it within policy and practice and maintaining that capacity across political cycles and staff transitions.
Thank you.
I thank Mr.
Abdul Gafur for his reflections.
I now give the floor to Mr.
Giovanni Pinter, youth representative.
My question is, how can young people be agents for changing in road safety beyond being seen only as a high risk group? Thank you, Your Excellence, La depuch June, professor.
So yesterday I was having a conversation with Molly from yours.
Hi, Molly, and we agreed that three dimensions are fundamental for youth to help in the next decade and she will call it inclusion.
I call it listening, then accountability and economics, the broad funding context.
When it comes to listening, nine years ago, I lost both my brothers in a car crash.
But I'm not in this room because of this.
We've heard is not rare.
I'm not here to pity for my loss.
I'm here because of what my community and I did after it.
Soon after the crash, me and my friends create a Nepo.
Neppo today is the largest youth movement in Italy advocating for safer infrastructure and here's what we learned.
The way to make road safety matter was not to lecture people, it was to listen and then bring back what we heard in language that people resonated with.
In my city, we all loved hip hop music, and we all wanted safer streets one way or the other.
We started advocating through big hip hop concerts.
And we became so loud that nobody could pretend that they could not listen.
These are the two dimensions I want to stress when it comes to listening.
First, our ability to listen to the community of the youth and understand what we actually care and what is cool, what is fashion, what is the next thing.
Second, the fact that our government was eventually forced to listen and destroy and rebuild the curve when I lost my brothers.
If you can also use not my example.
We are here in New York, and I think Mamdanis just six years older than me, is making listening his brand and is making it cool.
We are speaking about pothole politics as if it's funny now.
It's a cool thing thanks to social media and this fresh new style.
Accountability.
Push brings me to this second point.
I lost my brothers on a road that everybody knew for his dangerousness and nobody fixed it.
Still today, most major countries globally, they have no clear rules on how to hold road managers and concessioneres legally accountable.
Even though we all know road design is one of the biggest drivers of crashes, there are no clear set of panel rules to keep them accountable.
Too often the individual road users and especially us, the youth, are asked to be the most responsible link in the chain while an entire category of decision makers stays untouched.
So if governments and concessionaires design the system, they must answer for the system.
My third point is broader and it's about the economics of all this.
Young people, we are digital natives.
We're fluent in emerging tech and AI, and I think that matters today more than ever because it has never been cheaper in human history to deploy this technology.
A few months ago, I launched a hotspot locator in Italy.
In just a semester, I built a team and I shipped this product.
It's not because I'm special, it's because it costs a fraction of what it would have costed even a year ago.
This summer, I'm joining Civil, which is a startup in Boston that uses der and cameras to build a digital twin of every road in the world.
What used to require massive budgets and decades of institutional capacity can now be done by small teams fast.
The people who will scale these solutions globally are the youth.
Let me close with this.
We're entering the UN AT reforms and we should be honest.
Mechanisms like the Regional commissions or the UN Road Safety Fund, which they taught me a lot.
I was working there for around three years may not survive the next wave of UN changes.
I think this moment is critical.
The time to act is now, and I think youth as something that this moment needs the stamina to go bold.
My ask is simple, bring us in earlier and bring more of us in.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr.
Pinter, for your insights.
I now open the floor for the comments and questions.
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The green light on your microphone will guide the technician to activate your microphone.
Once the light on your microphone turns red indicating that your microphone has been activated, you may proceed to make your intervention.
In order to allow maximum participation by all present, I appeal to all participants to limit your interventions to 3 minutes.
To manage our time efficiently, the microphone will be cut off after 3 minutes.
I now give the floor to the first speaker on my list.
The delegation from Turkmenistan, the floor is yours.
Spasse.
Thank you.
Distinguished moderator, ladies and gentlemen, Madam President, colleagues, first of all, on behalf of the Delegation of Turkmenistan, I would like to express our great gratitude to those who organize this meeting on the issue on global road safety in the face of the president of the eighth session of the General Assembly.
Thank you for organizing and allowing us to speak about the measures undertaken in Turkmenistan so as to ensure road safety.
In Turkmenistan, the ensuring road safety is done through assigning authorities through the cabinet ministers to local authorities and other authorized bodies.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs of my country within our existing laws and within the authority is carry most of that function country wide.
So as to implement these works, the ministry is undertaking measures with the emphasis on prevention so as to ensure safety and heighten the responsibility of those who use roads.
For that, we have laws and they are being gradually amended and improved.
In the recent years, responsibility for violating road rules have been enhanced for pedestrians and drivers.
People are responsible for various violations, including being under the influence.
To pedestrians were not following traffic signs or when they're crossing the road in those places where they shouldn't.
For drivers when they're not following the rules or not using safety belts or helmets, et cetera.
Since 2013 in our country in September, we have a month on road safety, the prerequisite for health and we conduct activities there to promote a healthy way of using various means of using the roads and bicycles in particular.
Local bodies of executive power participating in this as well as mass media and our educational institutions.
Also dissemination activities are being conducted on how to follow the rules of the road and prevention accidents.
The president of Turkmenistan in 2015.
I thank the delegation of Turkmenistan.
I now give the floor to the delegation of the Philippines.
Thank you very much, Madam moderator.
At the outset, I wish to thank the panelists for their important remarks.
The Philippines reaffirms its strong commitment to advancing road safety through a whole of government and whole of society approach anchored on the Safe System framework.
Road injuries remain a major public health and development challenge, especially for low and middle income countries.
Beyond the tragic loss of lives, road crashes strain health systems, weaken economies and disproportionately affect the most vulnerable, such as children, pedestrians and cyclists.
Line with the global plan for the decade of action for road safety, the Philippines launched a road safety action plan for 2023 to 2028, which aims to reduce road traffic fatalities by 35% by 2028.
To strengthen governments and enforcement, we continue to enhance coordination among transport, public works, interior health and local government authorities.
We are implementing stricter enforcement measures, including the no contact apprehension policy and strengthen driver licensing and vehicle inspection systems.
The Philippines is also investing in safer and more inclusive mobility systems to prioritize safer infrastructure, accessible public transport, pedestrian connectivity, and the protection of vulnerable road users.
We are also strengthening emergency medical services, trauma care, and rescue coordination.
We value our close cooperation with the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and the Secretary-General Special envoy for Road Safety, whose partnerships reinforce our alignment with global road safety priorities and support evidence based people centered interventions.
We underscore the need for stronger international cooperation, especially increased support for low and middle income countries in capacity building, technology transfer, data systems, and sustainable financing.
As we prepare for the high level meeting in July, the Philippines supports an action oriented outcome with measurable commitments and adequate means of implementation.
Road safety must always be integrated into broader health, urban planning, and climate resilient agendas.
Thank you very much.
I thank the Philippines.
I now give the floor to the delegation of Tunisia.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Actually, I did not ask for the floor.
I'm sorry for any inconvenience.
Thank you.
The next speaker is Unicef.
Excellencies, distinguished delegates, colleagues, all of you in the room who are parents.
It's an honor to join you at this critical moment.
Today, we're addressing one of the greatest and most preventable threats to the lives and well being of children and young people worldwide, road traffic injuries.
Every year, more than 180,000 children lose their lives on the world's roads.
Many more are injured often with lifelong consequences.
Road traffic injuries are now the leading cause of death among children and adolescents aged five to 19 years.
Rates of road traffic deaths among children and adolescents are up to three times higher in low and middle income than in high income countries.
But beyond these numbers are daily realities.
For millions of children, the simple act of walking to school means navigating unsafe roads without sidewalks, safe crossings or speed protection.
Fear of traffic keeps children from accessing education, health care, and opportunities to thrive.
Globally, children's needs are often invisible in road design standards, which often prioritize vehicle flow over safety and accessibility.
This is not only a public health issue, it's a child's rights issue.
No child should lose their life simply trying to reach school, home, or play.
Excellencies, children are uniquely vulnerable within our transport systems, yet often these systems are not designed mind.
If we are serious about saving lives, we must place children and young people at the center of the global road safety agenda.
This means accelerating a child responsive safe system approach that recognizes human vulnerability and designs roads, vehicles, and policies to prevent fatal outcomes.
UNICEF calls for five urgent actions.
First, prioritize child centered road safety and national policies and systems across transport, health, education, and urban planning, and improve data on children and road safety.
Second, design safer transport and mobility systems for children, including safe school zones, sidewalks, crossings, and protected spaces for walking and cycling.
Third, strengthen and enforce laws on speed, seat belts, helmets, and child restraints, especially in areas where children live and learn and improve access to child restraints, seat belts, and helmets, especially in low and middle income countries.
Fourth, increase investment in safe school zones and child safe mobility infrastructure.
Every child should be able to travel safely to and from school.
Proven interventions such as reduced speed limits around schools, sidewalks, safe pedestrian crossings, traffic calming measures, and protected walking and cycling routes save lives and can be implemented now, even in resource constrained settings.
Fifth, foster safer road user behaviors among adults, young people, and children and engage communities and empower young people as agents of change.
Children are not just beneficiaries, they are powerful advocates for safer streets and safer futures as we just heard.
Excellencies.
Protecting children on the world's roads is essential to achieving the sustainable development goals on health, education, and sustainable cities.
UNICEF remains committed in our work with governments and partners.
I thank the representative of Unicef.
I now give the floor to the NAadA Foundation for safer Egyptian roads.
Thank you, Madam Moderator, and I appreciate having civil society involved in this session.
I have a few questions to the panelists focused on accountability.
Miss Lotte, you mentioned the need for accountability mechanisms to ensure the government deliver on commitments.
In your experience with the Global Alliance of NGOs, what is the single most effective bottom up tool that local communities can use to hold their national governments publicly accountable? And also for youth representative, Mr.
Pittor, you spoke about moving young people from a high risk group to agents of change.
How can the United Nations and member states better integrate youth led innovations like crowd sortcing and others into their strategies for safety improvement.
Doctor Abdel four, you highlighted the capacity and data barriers in low and middle income countries.
Beyond just technical training.
How can we better incentivize multi sectoral coordination so that road safety doesn't remain siloed within the Ministries of Health? Thank you.
I think for the questions, the answers will be at the end of after all speakers.
Now I give the floor to the delegation of Bangladesh.
Good morning and thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you for this opportunity to participate in this important discussion.
Since we are discussing strengthening multi sectoral coordination for road safety, we would like to highlight the importance of vision in the context of road safety.
The 2022 Political Declaration called for integrated approach to road safety, including addressing visual impairment.
But the implementations, we need to work on the implementation, on this important aspect.
A ahead of the high level meeting and the negotiations on the political declaration, we would like to emphasize that roads safer roads cannot be achieved without addressing vision impairment, especially avoidable ones.
Today, 1.1 billion people live with an avoidable vision impairment.
It's not only a health issue.
Data says poor vision increases crash risk by nearly 50%.
In 2021, Bangladesh considered it a moral imperative to join hands with Antiguon Barbudda and Ireland to have the UN General Assembly adopt the resolution on vision for everyone.
Our main objectives were to flag the inequitities inherent in the global eye health scenario and to help accelerate the 2030 global targets focusing on cataract and refractive error, the two major causes of vision impairment and blindness.
Bangladesh has also acceded to the Wip Marrakesh Treaty.
We have formulated an integrated people centered care program as part of our efforts to achieve universal health coverage by 2030.
With the support of the development partners, our transport authority has been integrating vision screening into driver training initiatives.
Madam Chair, investing in basic IC and vision correction is one of the most immediate and cost effective road safety interventions.
Data says that this could prevent over 200,000 road traffic injuries by 2,031.2 million more beyond.
It will also help drivers remain safe and economically active.
If we are serious about reducing road traffic deaths and injuries, health needs to be integrated national strategies.
For effective road safety, we would also highlight on a strong coordination between transport authorities, health ministries, or entities, and including licensing bodies.
Bangladesh looks forward to engage constructively in the negotiations of the upcoming political declaration.
I thank you.
I thank the representative of Bangladesh.
I now give the floor to Representative of Cambodia, followed by El Salvador.
Good morning, Chair.
Cambodi does not request for the floor.
Thank you, ma'am.
The next speaker is from El Salvador Excellency, distinguished colleagues, El Salvador is grateful for this hearing as part of the preparatory process ahead of the high level meeting on road safety.
El Salvador reaffirms its commitment to the improvement of road safety as an essential component of sustainable development, and we recognize its direct impact on public health.
In this regard, El Salvador has driven actions aimed at strengthening road infrastructure, promoting safer and more inclusive mobility, and moving towards interinstitutional coordination, giving priority to a comprehensive approach that links road safety with urban planning, the strengthening of the normative framework, and improving use of technologies for the improvement of road management.
These efforts are taking place in a global context where road safety continues to be critical to global public health.
As indicated by the SG in his recent report, more than 1.19 million people lose their lives every year in traffic accidents.
This disproportionately impact developing countries, including middle income countries where 92% of the victims are located.
This is why it's essential that we move towards swifter and more effective implementation, especially as regards sustainable financing and capacity building.
These are crucial aspects for achieving the global goal of reducing death and injury due to traffic accidents by half by 2030.
First, it's essential that we strengthen financing mechanisms, especially for developing countries, including middle income countries.
Their structural limitations make it difficult for them to implement measures.
In this regard, we agree on the importance of guaranteeing sustainable financing, combining national resources with international support and integrating road safety into broader investment in urban planning, infrastructure, investment, and health.
Including a preventive approach and immediate responses to road accidents.
Secondly, we must strengthen institutional capacity building and governance mechanisms and exchange of good practice so that we can accelerate implementation of effective solutions.
By way of conclusion, El Salvador reiterates its commitment to the global goal of the second decade of action on road safety.
The Progress Declaration and the high level meeting represent key opportunities for translating our commitments into concrete actions that can save lives.
I thank you.
I thank the representative of El Salvador.
I now give the floor to UN Economic Commission of Europe.
Thank you, Your Excellency, distinguished delegates, colleagues.
The multi stakeholder hearing takes place at a decisive moment of the second decade of action for road safety.
There is a real risk that the objectives of this decade will not be achieved.
The leadership of the General Assembly is very clear on road safety.
We have an ambitious plan.
We have the high level meeting happening in two months, but there is a gap between ambition and implementation, as was already noted, particularly in countries bearing the highest burden of road traffic deaths and injuries.
The numbers are striking, no matter what you compare them to, and the gap between developed and developing nations is very large.
This gap reflects a systemic failure in how road transport is planned, regulated, financed, and managed.
For this reason, road safety must be approached as a systemic issue requiring coherent action across legislation, enforcement, infrastructure, vehicles, behavior, and post crash response.
Without this systemic approach, no achievement of SDG 3.6.
Allow me to highlight three issues.
First, financing.
Road safety remains chronically underfunded and underfnanced globally and in each country.
We need to first leverage financing at scale, including infrastructure financing and private sector, and second, prioritize road safety in national budgets.
For that, countries, especially developing countries need catalytic funding.
UN does not have a single line of budget for road safety.
In this context, WHO regional commissions and other players in the system play a very unique and complimentary role.
One instrument that we do have at our disposal is the UN Road Safety Fund.
It's a primary UN catalytic financing mechanism to help translate political commitments into concrete results.
It's sustained funding and contributions to UN RSF will directly influence how much of the commitments discussed at the high level meeting can actually be implemented in developing countries.
Yes, we will need to do this in close complementarities with other players, other private and public sources of finance.
Second, multilateral frameworks.
Need to be respected and need to be used.
As transport systems evolve, regulatory stability, harmonization, legal certainty is what member states need.
We call on all of them to use UN's legal instruments hosted by UNIC on road traffic, road signs and signals, vehicle regulations, and others, including by Using low hanging fruit, periodic technical inspection for vehicles is one simple thing almost every member state can implement today and we're there to help.
Of course, we need standards for used vehicles, which is a growing problem in developing countries.
Let's use what we have.
Finally, we need to use proven entry points as accelerators within a safe system and we support the Secretary-General Special envoys initiative to have a global road safety week structured around the credit I thank you, Economic Commission of Europe.
I now give the floor to your use for road safety.
Thank you so much.
Chairs, Excellencies, distinguished delegates and partners.
My name is Molly Stoneman, and I'm speaking on behalf of Ys Youth for Road Safety, a global organization working with and for young people to demand and deliver road safety and sustainable mobility.
The high level meeting could accelerate real progress and Y stands ready to work hand in hand with all stakeholders in this process to strengthen solutions through community input.
We can offer capacity building, policy analysis, youth driven evidence, community mobilization, and methods for participatory feedback.
Here's the simple truth.
We already know what works to save lives on our roads.
Our challenge is a lack of inclusion, financing, and accountability to speed up and scale.
I will share recommendations on all three thanks to consultations with members of the Global Youth Coalition for Road Safety from 126 countries.
First, we, the world's youth, call for inclusion.
Young people are not only your end beneficiaries, we are asking to become your collaborators, your idea generators, your advisory panel, and even your project leaders.
To the member states in the room and listening, as you prepare for the high level meeting, invite your up and coming young talent to take part in your delegation.
Host community focus groups to review your road safety strategies, ensure diverse voices speaking in your side events and meetings.
Build youth talent pipelines into your strategic plans not only for road safety but across sectors.
Second, we the world's youth call for financing.
We call for budgets pooled across agencies and complemented by private and multilateral players so that the responsibility is led by government but shared across all sectors.
To our member states, empower and resource cities to enact concrete action plans so that we can see progress more rapidly.
Connect funding streams and data systems across ministries of health, public safety, education, sports, and climate.
All of these departments will benefit when people can move safely.
And last, we, the World's youth Call for accountability.
The Marrakech ministerial meeting collected around 50 commitments from which to build.
The high level meetings outcome should not represent a new list of commitments, but a collection of accountability plans with strong follow up mechanisms.
Accountability is not a scary word.
It is the uplifting of trust and ownership across citizens and institutions.
To member states, include citizen monitors to crowdsource your project tracking in a cost effective, participatory and trust building way.
Host community working groups to assess progress and sustain feedback loops.
We don't want to be your evaluators, we want to be your allies.
The message from youth is clear, progress must be felt on the ground.
We will not be judged by the promises made in this room, but by the impact felt at the community level.
Thank you so much.
I thank your you for road safety.
Now I give the floor to ska Moon, Dominican Republic.
Thank you very much moderator.
As a representative of the Dominican Republic NGO, one of the key challenges the Dominican Republic has faced has been the and road safety.
Dominican Republic has been highlighted as one of the countries with the highest levels of mortality due to traffic accidents in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Dominican Republic also has a history of this and has been one of the largest pillars in international organizations with a high level of risk of traffic accidents.
The main challenges for road safety in the Dominican Republic, the lack of education about road safety and a lack of road safety culture.
There is a lack of accessible use with adequate protections of motorcycles.
We're seeking to implement sustainable solutions to reduce road mortality and to make roads safer for all users by strengthening road education, together with permanent education programs in schools and universities and also in communities.
A greater higher level of prosecutions, enforcement of the law, and stricter ways of dealing with those who violate road safety rules is also important.
We're also promoting the use of safety helmets for motorcyclists.
In conclusion, Road safety should not only be a matter of traffic, it should be a human and sustainable development priority.
The Dominican Republic reaffirms its continuous commitment to drive public policies and institutional partnerships and strategies for prevention.
We hope that this continues so that we can save lives and build a safer future to all.
Today, from the Dominican Republic, we reaffirm our commitment to the protection of human lives and to ensuring road safety.
It is a shared responsibility across governments, institutions, and citizens.
We must act decisively and in an informed way to reduce mortality on the roads and to guarantee safer roads for the future generation.
As highlighted a moment ago, we should also use AI and social networks to do this.
I thank you.
I thank Moon, Dominican Republic.
I now give the floor to the National Transport Safety Center, KSA.
We can move if not.
Now I give the floor to rep.
Thank you.
Madam Chair, Excellencies, distinguished delegates and road safety stakeholders and partners.
I represent the International Road Assessment Program, IRAP.
IRA is a global charity dedicated to creating a world free of high risk roads.
Its mission is to save lives by eliminating dangerous road infrastructure through evidence based assessment, safer road design, and targeted investment, strongly promotes the global target of achieving three star or better roads for all road users.
Research behind the methodology shows that every incremental improvement in star rating can approximately half the risk of death or serious injuries on a road.
Safer infrastructure treatments such as median barriers, traffic calming, pedestrian crossings, sidewalks, bicycle lanes, and safer intersections significantly reduce both the likelihood and the severity of crashes and sometimes these measures could be low cost ones.
In summary, IRAPs mission is not only to assess roads but to transform them into safer systems where human mistakes do not result in death or life changing injuries.
By upgrading roads to at least three star standard, countries can dramatically reduce road trauma and move closer to the global target of a fing road deaths and injuries.
And finally, leading to the high level meeting in July, we have already reached out to all the head of states of the countries we work with through the UN delegations to urge them to take part in the meeting and to the important role they can play in support to the decade and to renew their commitment to health fraud deaths and injuries in their countries.
Thank you.
I thank rep.
Now I give the floor to the Vision Spring.
Thank you very much.
I'm Ella Goodwin, the CEO of Vision Spring.
This is just to reaffirm the statement from Bangladesh.
Vision and road safety go hand in hand.
Drivers cannot see the roads clearly to avoid hazards.
We know from having screened the vision with our colleagues at Site Savers, India Vision Institute, and the Mission for Vision, that in screening the vision of 2 million truck drivers and allied transportation workers, that one in four drivers who come into a vision camp do not have the eyeglasses or the cataract surgery that they need in order to avoid hazards on the road.
We strongly support and encourage the inclusion of vision as one of the key interventions to make roads safer.
We are really supportive of the UN Friends of Vision in adopting this intervention as part of the text for the upcoming resolution on road safety.
Thank you.
I thank Vision Group in accordance with the program, dear colleagues, I will give the floor for two more speakers and invite all panelists to have a very brief 1 minute reflection and last message for the participants.
Those who didn't have an opportunity to speak at panel one are invited to inscribe for intervention at the second panel.
I thank you.
Now I give the floor to the Association for Safe International road travel.
No, it's a Save Li Foundation.
We'll take up in the next panel, ma'am.
Thank you.
Together for safer roads.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Excellencies, distinguished colleagues.
My name is Peter Goldwasser and I serve as the Executive Director of Together for Safer Roads, a global NGO committed to saving lives and preventing serious injuries by strengthening fleet safety worldwide.
The Secretary-General February 2026 report on improving global road safety makes clear that while progress has been made, we are still not moving at the pace required to meet the goals of the second decade of action for road safety.
That reality calls for a true whole of society response, one in which governments lead, but where private industry and civil society play meaningful and sustained roles.
At TSR, we work at the intersection of those sectors.
We convene major private fleets, public agencies, technology providers, vehicle manufacturers, insurers, and road safety institutions are on one shared belief that lasting progress on road safety requires coordinated action because the reality is that road safety is deeply connected to how the global economy functions every day.
Roughly one third of road traffic deaths on worldwide are linked to occupational activity.
In the United States, transportation incidents remain the leading cause of workplace fatalities.
The scale of that exposure is a challenge, but it is also an opportunity.
Commercial fleets operate at extraordinary scale, and when safety practices improve across those fleets, the impact can extend across hundreds of thousands of vehicles and drivers at once.
When companies pilot and validate new technologies in real world operations that generate the evidence needed for broader adoption.
When industries align around stronger operational standards, safer practices begin to scale across entire markets.
In other words, the private sector's greatest contribution to this decade may not be any single initiative, but the speed and scale at which safety norms can shift when major institutions move together.
This is where organizations like TSR believe we can contribute and partner.
Our role is to help bring the right institutions together, align incentives, and translate shared commitments into practical implementation across vehicle design, driver training, technology adoption, and fleet operations.
The opportunity before us is significant, not only to reduce deaths and serious injuries, but to help establish a global expectation that the movements of goods and services and people must also mean the movement of safety standards, accountability, and shared responsibility.
TSR and our members stand ready to support the commitments and actions that emerge from this and future meetings and to help ensure that the private sector's contribution to this decade is equal to the moment.
Thank you.
I thank you.
I now give the floor to the last speaker, Global Designing Cities Initiative.
They want to speak in next panel.
We have heard the last speaker in our list and I would like to thank all the participants for their valuable interventions and questions raised.
I now give the floor to all panelists for 1 minute reflection and the last message for our participants.
Thank you.
Thank you for all the powerful inputs and the support for the dec of action.
Accountability is about celebrate success, but also pinpoint when things are not going as they should.
The big role for civil society and one of the tools in our toolbox is around being a watchdog.
It's about using our voice and use that voice in a way that is productive and also put pressure and remind of the responsibility of the decision makers of ensuring safety for all.
Tools in the toolbox was the question, show what unsafe speed looks like, show what urban environment looks like, show the helmets that are available, use your voice and use the pressure that you have and do it in a collaborative manner.
Be that ally that you should be and ensure that it's a partnership and not a battle, but also remind of the responsibility that is and use the partners that we have, for example, media, is a very important partner in ensuring that and showcasing what the realities look like.
Thank you.
Thank you, miss Bum.
I now give the floor to Mr.
Pio Tivare.
Madam Moderator, listening to this room and especially my fellow panelists, I'm struck by how much consensus there is on what needs to be done.
If I may leave the panel with one thought.
Every recommendation made here today will translate into life saved only when it is owned by a named officer in a defined geography against a public target on a monthly clock.
That is the difference between commitment and outcomes.
The declaration will succeed if it asks member states not only what they will do, but where, by whom, and by when.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I now give the floor to Mr.
Abdul Gafur Bachane.
Thank you and thank you for the significant and incredible input through your contributions.
I will respond to the question from the floor that was asking about how do you incentivize coordination across multiple sectors? One of the ways in which we can do this, we know that we've heard around the room.
We know what works.
We just need to do it.
I would argue that's not enough.
Knowing what works is not enough.
We need to dig deeper and see how it works, where it works, whom it works for.
We need to articulate a guiding strategic framework that looks at brings the different and often competing goals across the transport system together, and working on data systems is a way to do that.
As I mentioned in my earlier comments, a lot of these agencies have their siloed data systems.
And this leads to fragmentation of data, underestimation, and lack of reliable estimates.
But the data is there.
It is when these agencies come together to figure out, okay, what are the gaps? Why are you reporting X number, we're reporting Y number is when the shared vision starts to shape and we've seen examples around the world where when that happens, agencies start to come together in a meaningful way first to address the data gaps, but then quickly moving the discussion to, what do we do about it? That plays into accountability, that plays into shared responsibility, that plays into implementation, monitoring what's going on, et cetera.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I now give the floor to Mr.
Govan Pinter.
I received a question from our friend from Egypt, if I'm not wrong.
Thank you.
I will try to be less abstract as possible.
I think I can draw from my experience on how the youth was successfully embedded in decision making processes.
I remember Commissioner Outta Up in Europe, she established that the youth sounding board.
This is something that the UN can definitely borrow as a concept, maybe through the help of yours.
To really include young people in the decision making bodies.
Then I remember when I worked at the UN Road Safety Fund, one of the most ambitious project was related with the risking young start uppers working in the road safety dimension, I would say.
I think there is part of the key.
Youth are more prone to take risks for obvious reasons.
I think if a institutions like the UN Road Safety Fund could push more, continue, enlarge these efforts.
That would be a great solution, especially given the historical moment where we're in, and as I was saying before, it's at the cheapest at the economy level to deploy solutions that are AI related and this kind of thing.
We share the same curiosity.
It's a very broad question, but I think two of the most low hanging fruits are there.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr.
Pinter.
I would like to express my sincere thanks to all the panelists and participants in this engaging and very important conversation.
I now close the first panel and invite everyone to remain seated for the second panel discussion on Hall of Government and Hall of Society action for sustainable financing and enhanced capacity.
I thank you.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Good morning, everybody.
Still late morning.
Thank you very much for staying for the second panel.
It's always a challenge to moderate the panel approaching the lunchtime, but I think my fellow ambassador Aida Kyrgyz ambassador set up a very good atmosphere here, so I will try to continue with that.
It's my pleasure to chair this panel.
The first one was about best practices and lessons learned.
This one is an opportunity to discuss how road safety commitments can be effectively financed.
I will make three very brief opening remarks that will also follow the points that were mentioned in the first panel.
The first one about capacity building.
Road safety cannot be delivered by one ministry alone.
A whole of government approach is needed linking transport, health, finance, education, you name it, justice enforcement.
At the same time, whole of society approach is essential where civil society, academia, and private sector, professional associations and communities, so all of you represented here are involved.
My second point goes to financing.
As we know, SDGs target 3.6, it was mentioned here, aims to halve road traffic deaths by 2030.
Achieving this goal requires a combination of education, effective law enforcement, and adequate funding.
We have already some important instruments that are at our disposal, including the one that was mentioned here, the UN EC Road Safety Fund.
There are others like World Bank Global Road Safety Facility.
However, these resources alone are obviously not sufficient and must be complemented by domestic financing from national governments and by private sector.
My third point, road safety is largely non political and broadly consensual issue.
Paradoxically, however, it received far less attention and funding that it deserves.
Our shared objective must be to move from political declarations to practical and measurable action.
Unlike many other global challenges in the case of road safety, we know what to do.
So now we just need to do it.
That's a certain advantage, let's say.
All in all, I would like to invite distinguished panelists to focus on practical solutions.
How countries can secure sustainable financing? How can national and local capacity be strengthened? How can road safety be integrated into broader development investments and SDG implementation? I for us co facilitators, also, what concrete proposals should be reflected in the high level meeting in July and in its progress declaration we will start to prepare right after this meeting.
Before giving the floor to the panelist, allow me to share some practical information you heard also in the first panel, but I have to repeat them.
As the previous panel mentioned, those of you wishing to speak during the interactive discussion are kindly requested to scan the QR code displayed on the screen.
If you are not able to scan the code approach, you see they're behind.
If you are not able to scan the code, please approach the Secretariat colleagues.
Representatives from member states, UN system, and observers are invited to press the mic button.
And you may indicate your wish to speak starting now.
You will be called to speak after the presentation by the panelists once the floor is open for the interactive discussion.
Now, let me turn to our four exceptional panelists and allow me to start with miss Sky Duncan.
Executive Director of Global Design Cities Initiative.
And my question that goes to you, miss Duncan.
You have been leading the program developing the Global Street Design Guide and assisting cities like Sao Pauo, Bogota, Mumbai, Adis Ababa.
How can global Street design and urban mobility approaches protect people walking, cycling, and using public transport? Well, firstly, thank you very much for the question and the opportunity to answer this time maybe slightly differently, but with some visuals.
When we think about our cities where so many of our fatalities are happening, we cannot avoid thinking about our urban streets.
These are our largest continuous network of public space that we have and therefore one of our greatest untapped assets that we have in our cities to address a number of challenges.
Yet in every single corner of the planet, this is what we do with that valuable real estate.
We give it over to the private vehicle to the point that we're consuming our budgets.
We're chewing up our time, damaging our environment and heating our planet.
We have forgotten that human beings are the ones that help our cities thrive and function.
We've created environments where folks are having to risk their lives on a daily basis to get to work and to get to school.
We now have over 80% of our young folks dying and not getting enough physical activity, a big cause of which is it's no longer safe to walk and cycle to school, 99% of our population breathing polluted air.
We've heard again and again today the stats about people in the prime of their lives losing their lives, completely preventable deaths on our streets.
So we implore this group in road safety to invert this outdated hierarchical pyramid where the car has been king for too long and instead put people first to prioritize children, elderly, people with disabilities as we make our daily political, financial, and policy and design decisions and to prioritize space for sustainable mobility, city services, and when we have space, we give that to our least efficient mode of transport, which is our private automobile.
The bulk of our city streets are already built.
Yes, we need to get our new projects well designed and safe, but if we don't also look at this real estate in our cities through a new lens and ask what's possible to see how can we use that space to support more functions, improving air quality, managing our water, improving biodiversity, and at the same time supporting people moving through different modes.
It's time to shift away from a baseline of surviving to one of thriving.
It's time to take off our blinders, as we've heard in the first panel, to work across disciplines, to work across scales, across different levels of government and with our partners in advocacy, academic, and industry, to work together to solve this challenge.
We need to identify all the people who shape our streets at different parts of the process and bring them to the table.
We need to start at the larger scale with our planning and make decisions around our urban development and growth that ties land use, density, and mobility, transportation together so that people have their fundamental needs close distance to where they're living.
We need to think about complete, connected and safe networks for people walking, cycling, and taking transit and allocating, dedicating space within that real estate, within our street to people walking, cycling, and taking transit so that these are authentic mobility choices, not asking people to get out of their car and walk in hot climates and try to get their kids to school safely when there's not even a safe crossing or pleasant environment.
Just by rethinking where we draw the lines in our street, we can move more people more efficiently, but also achieve all these other functions.
It's time to solve a different problem from moving cars at high speeds to supporting our people and planet.
And when we rethink the swaths of asphalt, we not only make it safer for parents to pick up children after school, but unlock opportunities for supporting social connections and mental health while also improving our air quality.
Or like this project in Ghana where we're not only able to reduce speeds, but at the same time reduce emissions, reduce noise, reduce temperature so that kids and communities can thrive.
And when we repaint and rethink our street space, we can demonstrate that safe geometry equals safe speeds.
It helps to self enforce safe behaviors, but it also means more people out walking, sitting, spending time in our communities, and of course, it means more lives saved.
We know that challenging the status quo and doing things differently can be terrifying.
We know that it often feels for those of us doing that, it feels like we're getting attacked by pitchforks and we know that pushback is inevitable.
We know that small groups of people can and will make a lot of noise about a different approach and sometimes our headlines will not support those courageous political decisions.
But we cannot get paralyzed to the point of inaction.
Our streets do not change by accident.
People like the folks in this room and making daily decisions They make an active decision to do things differently and invest in safe and multimodal transportation that prioritize people.
That's exactly what we need to do as this community, take road safety at the heart of what we're doing, but broaden our leans, break down our silos so that we can also go and talk to people about these different topics while keeping road safety at the heart.
We very much look forward to working with this community to reimagine, reinvent, and redesign streets that are safer, healthier, and more sustainable for everybody.
Thank you.
Excellent.
Thank you, miss Duncan, for your insightful intervention, and impressive PowerPoint.
Our second panelist is miss Claudia Adré Zola Stale, Director of Health and Road Safety at World Resources Institute.
Miss Adré Zola Stale, my AI assistant, told me that you have been developing one of the most innovative road safety program in the world.
So starting question for you.
How can road and street design speed management and protection of vulnerable road users? Thank you very much.
AI is right.
I think we have been developing all of us a very innovative way to look at road safety and to follow the excellent presentation of my colleague Sky Duncan, I think we are in front of an existential question.
How do we live? But this existential question is not that big, it has practical solutions.
In this conversation, I hope to inspire all of you to think and go back home and try these very concrete solutions that can unlock many co benefits.
This is the first cause of death for children and young people five to 29.
We have heard that many times.
I want for you to take 5 seconds to just think about it for the ones that have children here, how impossibly devastating as Vivian said, will be to lose a child.
So we are not talking about a problem that needs a Band Aid, that we need to fix that intersection, that avenue, or that bike lane.
We are talking about a system problem and road safety with 1.2 million people and 50 million people injured every year is just the top of the iceberg.
That's why we have to rethink and this comes together with all the issues that we are facing right now like our climate changing so rapidly that now we have about 60 million people a year dying because of heat waves, of how fast our system is changing.
In India, where we have heard the previous panelists is one of the countries with the majority of deaths, 50% of all deaths happen in India.
They have rich temperatures of 50 degrees Celsius, but this is not just in India.
In 2050, only 24 down the road, Madrid will have temperatures of 50 degrees Celsius during the summertime.
The way we have been living, the way we are Creating still our transport systems have to change.
Let's recap a little bit and many of the colleagues, including the sky have talked about that.
Why are we in this big problem? Because our cities are designed for motorized vehicles.
We fell in love when cars came in our world and we say, okay, let's dedicate all our space where we live to make these vehicles move and move at speeds that we were absolutely not designed.
Our bodies are not designed to live with.
Our bodies cannot absorb kinetic energy, and that is why only at 30 kilometers/hour, that is about 17 miles per hour, 10% of us, if hit by a car will die.
Now, with the way we design cities and understanding that cities are only going to continue growing, we know that by 2050, 70% of all us humans will be living in cities.
With that, we will need to move more.
We will need why people go to cities because they are seeking economic development, economic opportunity.
And we will only see more growth and if we don't change our patterns of transportation the patterns of how we design cities, the issue of road safety will just keep growing.
Then we have mobilization, of course, and with that really a tragedy of the commons.
I need to go to work.
So I will drive even if my commute is only 3 kilometers.
I will not take mass transportation.
I You know, I'm not in the motor, I find it too complicated to bike.
So if one thinks like that, then 1 million, then ten, then many people create what we see in our streets, which is terrible congestion.
Nobody is happy with the transport system that we have right now.
If you go to Tom Tom and you look at the ranking for congestion, you will see that the majority of cities where you are from where you live for work, The average speed is 25 kilometers/hour when you live in a good city, but the cities that are the contenders for the most congested, the average speed is ten to 15 kilometers/hour.
When we are saying 30 kilometers/hour, is the safe speed, not the safest, but a safe speed that is still tolerates 10% of people being killed, we get a lot of pushback.
And you will say, this is going to be really bad for our lives.
Well, the city where Abby lives in London has established 20 miles per hour as the speed limit in Paris is 30 kilometers/hour.
Have these cities been destroyed at this point? No.
But they have really good thorough plans.
The city of Paris has a very strong public transport system, and when they lower the speed to 30 kilometers/hour, what happened is that a lot of people decided biking is good.
You know, I will save a lot of money.
I will save a lot of time.
Nobody is doing it because of climate change or because they want to avoid a traffic crash.
It's more convenient.
You make it better for them.
And in London, exactly the same.
Now, in the developing world, we are growing exponentially and pushing more and more poor people to the edges of the cities.
They need to go to work, they need to bring kids to school and what is happening, they are using motorcycles.
Only in the city of Balta 5% of all trips are in motorcycles, but 50% of all deaths are motorcyclists.
In Rio, we have 15,000 people injured in only six months in 2025.
This is very recent data.
90% of orthopedic surgeries are done to motorcycles.
So the transport system is failing, is failing the jungles, it's failing the poorest, and it's telling them, You know what? You sorted out yourself.
And with that, as I was saying, this is only the point of an iceberg.
We we are losing many people, especially young men and leaving them hurt forever.
A recent one is energy insecurity.
Price of gas has risen to the roof, and this is felt especially by developing countries.
How wonderful will it be if we could stop a little bit the way we move and shift to a more sustainable solution at this point.
This is when we can support behavioral change.
Humans, we are, I'm sorry, We tend to be lazy.
Once we know that we can have an app and we can order, I forgot flower, I'm just going to order a delivery and comes to me in 5 minutes.
I'm going to drive because that's what I do all the time.
That's behavior and changing that behavior is really difficult.
But in this moment where gas prices are very high, this is a moment where we can present and put other solutions.
Okay.
Now let's go to the solutions and the solutions are not really rocket science is how are we designing our cities? We say in road safety, no, we don't have money to work in road safety.
I want to challenge that because one of the biggest budgets in every country is the infrastructure budget.
In cities is the infrastructure budget.
The problem is that we are not thinking about how do we protect the life of people? How do we make them go to work in a safe way? We are just doing business as usual when our world is telling us business as usual cannot continue being that because we are going to continue to suffer, continue really putting in very high exposure, again, the most vulnerable, which are our children and our elderly.
When you go home, look at the public transport budget in your country.
That would be a good indicator if your country is serious about working on road safety, on equity, on climate change.
The second, look carefully at active mobility.
In Ireland, there is percent of their infrastructure budget earmarked for walking and cycling.
That means that they are not only cute additions or do it yourself and see how you move around.
They have the infrastructure, the safe infrastructure that is needed.
Finance.
Again, if we invest the money that we have in a correct way, we are going to be able to move a lot faster.
In 2021, when we were in the middle of the pandemic, Nairobi spent in a railroad $120 million.
That road is killing 50 people every year because it's a railroad in a very dense area and so we are blaming pedestrians.
They are crossing that street that is in the middle of the road.
Could we have spent that money in increasing public transport, which is the main mode of transportation in most of the countries in the developing world? I think so.
Data incredibly important because at the end of the day, we have to measure our progress with how many less children are dying in our roads, how many less elderly people we are killing, how many young men and women are dying? How many people we are saving? And finally, this cannot be isolated of other areas.
We need deeper connection with nature.
That's why when we say, how are we going to reduce emissions from transport and we just put a silver bullet of electric vehicles, which is very important.
If we continue and change vehicles that are powered by fossil fuels with electric vehicles, we still have to have more asphalt, more concrete, that will continue heating our cities, that will continue not being permeable.
Which is a big problem when we have these very big floats and we cannot really absorb all that water.
It's important that you go back home and start thinking very concretely on these budget issues and on these connections.
Thank you very much.
Yeah.
Excellent.
Thank you very much, miss Adré also for sharing interesting data and also this practical perspective on road safety.
Now I turn to Mr.
David Var, President Emeritus of Global New Car Assessment Program.
Mr.
Ward, I will give you a question before you take the floor.
Replacing unsafe vehicles or vehicles that do not meet basic safety standards is not a measure to be included in the category of low hanging fruits, of course.
My question is, what are the most important opportunities to accelerate vehicle safety in countries, mainly in countries with rapidly growing motrization floor is yours.
Mr.
Abeta, very good and interesting question which I hope I'll answer.
In the first quarter of the 21st century, 2 billion automobiles and over 1 million motorcycles have been produced.
That is more than in the whole of the previous century.
Unprecedented level of motorization in the last 25 years.
Now motor vehicles have hugely expanded opportunities for growth, employment, mobility, but at enormous social and economic cost.
The worldwide wave of motorized development has also proved to be a weapon of mass destruction.
In the last 25 years alone, at least 30 million people have died in road crashes.
If all the vehicles over the last 25 years had met best practice in vehicle standards, you could probably cut that number by 25-30%.
That gives you the scale of improvement that the vehicle bit of this story could contribute.
Now, there has been Great progress, in fact, in the last 25 years.
In the first UN decade of action, we've seen significant improvement in vehicle safety, wider application by member states of UN safety standards and independent crash test programs by the new car assessment programs have acted as catalysts to make cars much safer.
This combination of regulatory push and demand pull has ensured that today, The most important UN crash test standards are now applied to over 95% of all new cars sold everywhere in the world, which I hope in a way goes to answer your question.
Actually, progress of globalization of standards has been very successful in raising performance around the world.
Another example is the most important crash avoidance technology for passenger cars called electronic stability control is now fitted to 80% of new production.
When it comes to finance, important for all the governments here, that's cost governments nothing, zero.
All that progress is a relationship between the manufacturer and the consumer.
The more global standards you have, economies of scale are huge, costs come down, they become much more affordable.
That's what we've seen.
Now, despite that, we're still a long way from implementing in full the vehicle safety recommendations that were included in the global plan for the decade, which is critical to achieving the SDG target of halving road deaths by 2030.
A particular focus here is the G 20 countries, 19 countries plus the EU.
They are responsible for 90% of all motor vehicle production.
They are the engine room of all the vehicles that are populating the roads of the world.
Now, unfortunately, quite a number of G 20 countries still do not apply the minimum recommended UN standards.
A notable example is motorcycle anti lock brakes, which is an old technology.
It's been around for 30 years.
It's very cost effective lifesaving technology.
What is shocking is that it's only fitted to about 20% of the entire production of motorcycles worldwide.
It's just scandalous, frankly, that the technology that is ubiquitous in four wheeled vehicles is not also the same for motorcycles.
That is a government failure.
That's governments not regulating for a technology.
By the way, there is a UN regulation on the shelf available through the UN process in Geneva.
We also risk going backwards on some existing safety best practice.
All the major vehicle producing countries all the major ones, apply the UN regulation for pedestrian protection, apart from the United States of America.
Now, as a result of automotive tariff disputes, pressure is being applied to force a relaxation in pedestrian protection to increase market access for non compliant US vehicles.
That's happening, for example, in the European Union.
This is unacceptable.
US manufacturers should level up to global standards rather than drag them down.
By the way, they all know how to meet them.
In my view, the G 20 countries should resist watering down any existing safety regulations, and they must accept their unique responsibility to ensure that all the motor vehicles to be produced over the next 25 years are fully compliant with the minimum UN regulations described in the global plan.
And now that may seem like a challenge, but actually it's not when you think about it.
For exactly as I said, this is ultimately a relationship between consumers and manufacturers and at a global level, costs are not so heavy.
If the G 20 accepted that responsibility, they would help answer the question, what is the next 3 billion vehicles in the fleet? What are they going to look like? What we want them to be as safe and also by the way, as environmentally efficient as possible.
Obviously, there's a big wave of transition towards electrification.
Now, that is the challenge over the next 25 years to make those vehicles as safe and as clean as possible.
I think I'm optimistic a lot can be done.
Paradoxically also because I completely endorse what the last two speakers have said is of this new cohort of vehicles, we need them to be better than ever before, and we actually need to use them a lot less.
Thank you very much.
Mm.
Great.
Thank you, Mr.
Ward, for very clearly pinpointing the challenges ahead.
This brings me to the last but not least panelist, Mr.
Avi Silverman, acting Executive Director of FIA Foundation.
Mr.
Silverman, you have long experiences in international development and sustainable mobility.
One question for you for start.
What are the most important financing gaps preventing countries from implementing proven road safety measures at scale? The floor is yours.
Ambassador Hoeni, thank you very much, Your excellencies.
As my previous presenter, Claudia Adré very succinctly put it, there is a failing in the transport system.
I think all of the speakers have referred to this.
There's a failing really in the financing in particular as your question focuses on transportation as well.
We put together a report for the ministerial recent ministerial in Marrakesh.
Where it's stark and it's incredible to see that as we know, three to 5% of GDP is lost through road traffic, fatalities, injuries globally each year, could even be higher in many places than that estimate.
That is the same as the investment in transportation.
Um, we're losing what we put in the whole time.
This really is completely unsustainable.
It's resulting in untold human suffering, as my colleagues have pointed out, the leading killer of young people globally, and it's economically irrational.
And so this really needs to be addressed.
There's been some focus, some strong focus on this in the previous ministerials that have taken place, identifying a 400 to $600 billion gap in financing on road safety.
But these kinds of figures can often seem insurmountable, how do we start bringing together this kind of financing that's needed? The answer on it that I'd like to focus on really is in a lot of what Claudi said in terms of reconfiguring the existing financing that we already spend and spend very unwisely in many situations.
The kinds of approaches like those that my colleague David Ward outlined where actually a smart and focused approach to regulation to the relationship between regulation and the market can result in huge improvements as well.
To look at that, what we've focused on is where you see catalytic financing, the financing that the multilateral development banks have been doing, that in itself needs to be strengthened.
We're looking at a level of around about $700 million of multilateral development bank financing per year.
The MDBs themselves have recognized that that needs to be doubled.
It would be good if there's that recognition from member states that there needs to be serious further commitments to that as well.
But very importantly, it needs to be much more effectively integrated into the main sources of financing and approaches to financing on transportation and transportation infrastructure generally as well.
Too often, that just isn't done.
It's done as either an add on or it's not done effectively at all.
One area that we've seen that needs real significant further focus is over capacity.
There's a huge capacity gap, particularly in low and middle income countries generally.
The first issue is often over outdated standards and outdated regulations that actually, if member states were to get together over the high level ministerial and really address that area, which in many cases does not cost a huge amount, to focus on, that would make a huge difference in terms of updating those standards, ensuring that they are compliant with the safe system approach to road safety, ensuring that they cater for not just the most vulnerable road users, which is absolutely essential, but in many cases, it's the majority of the population who are walking, who are not using vehicles, who are needing public transportation, and the standards for road building, the standards for transportation infrastructure, as my colleagues have pointed out before, simply do not cater for them.
So a much stronger commitment to doing that, but at the same time, to building capacity to be able to deliver Then we have examples that we have been focusing on FIA foundation for many years in very effective approaches where we've been working together with the multilateral development banks with governments as well, where we've looked at the financing that's been going into road infrastructure, hundreds of millions of dollars across Sub Saharan Africa, for example, and looking at how that financing right at the outset can be focused in on the priorities of what's needed on safe footpaths, on safe crossings, on the kind of low speed approaches that Claudia set out on 30 kilometer/hour, particularly where there are vulnerable road users and children, on having safe school zones, and getting into that financing at the beginning, that government financing and multilateral development bank financing that many of our um expert implementation partners, the NGOs around the world, NGOs like Amend working in Sub Saharan Africa and East working in Central Asia have done around school area road safety has been tremendously effective and had huge impact in reducing injuries and fatalities and providing a fundamental right of a safe journey to school for all children.
That's something that should be a major priority in the high level meeting and something that is being delivered, but with further support from member states can be further built upon as we go towards 2030 and achieve real tangible outcomes and avoid a situation where the financing is just building higher speed roads, the kinds of roads that Claudio was referring to earlier, not just in the country that Claudiias referring to, but all over where we see high speed urban roads, ring roads going in that are unfit for the majority of road users, pedestrians, vulnerable road users as well.
And a focus on those areas, as my colleague David Ward pointed out, regulatory improvement at little or no cost to governments where there can be an improvement in vehicle standards globally that's already been shown to be effective and could be further built upon is absolutely essential.
Tackling the major and perhaps the most rapidly increasing road safety issue facing us motorcycle safety globally from a regulatory approach, helmet standards implemented far more effectively globally.
We've been supporting that on all regions globally, but needs much more engagement from member states and all sectors.
I would also point out the integration between road safety and other financing, mainstream financing on transportation is both possible and effective.
One example I would give, but it needs further development is in Dhakar in Senegal, which has been highlighted as quite possibly one of the most effective approaches to sustainable transport where they've put in an electric BRT system in Dhakar which has been very effective and on the specific corridors where the BRT is operating, the level of safety is very high.
We've had our colleagues at the International Road Assessment Program assess that level of safety to what it should be around four star, five star level of safety on the corridors themselves.
But the issue that's being missed is the connection for the wider public in Dhakar.
The investment that is needed in pedestrian and cyclist road safety and road safety for children, vulnerable road users in Dhakar is not being adequately addressed.
What would have been far more effective would be to have had an integrated approach to that financing, not just to look at the uh, 59,000 gigatons of CO two saved each year, which is, you know, a target that's very necessary, but also to look at the safety targets for the whole of the city.
And that would actually mean a return on investment for even the private investors themselves in Dhaka.
If if there had been a level of investment in safety for pedestrians accessing the BRT from the wider area of the city, our analysis shows that there would have been a 57.3% rate of return on that investment for the transport infrastructure itself.
Effectively, what would have meant would be that people would be able to access that BRT in far greater numbers and achieve the targets that the initial financing set out to do, but but may not be able to do if the investment in safety for the wider city is not there.
We need a much more holistic approach to these investments.
We need to stop thinking just in terms of climate, just in terms of economic development or thinking about maybe safety as an add on at best.
But what needs to happen is an integrated approach to all of this and the kinds of models that we're looking at where there can be an actual return for the investment itself, well as the economic benefits and the public health benefits and safety improvements needs to be seriously focused on and taken forward beyond the high level meeting itself.
It's only in taking that kind of approach that we're going to meet any of the sustainable development targets that we're all trying to meet.
Thank you very much.
Very good.
Holistic approach is definitely something that is needed in this very broad road safety agenda.
Thank you very much, Mr.
Silverman, for your insights.
This concludes the list of panelists.
Now I'm going to open the floor for comments and questions from you, from participants.
I have to repeat that once I give you the floor, please press the mic button.
The green light on your mic will guide the technician to activate it.
Once the light turns red, then that indicate that it has been activated and you can start to speak.
Once again, the limit, like in the first panel for your intervention is 3 minutes to manage our time efficiently.
The mic will be then cut off after 3 minutes.
We have already six requests for the floor and without further ado, I will start with the Safe Live Foundation, followed by network of employers for traffic safety.
Save Live Foundation, you have the floor.
Hello.
Thank you.
Thank you, moderator, sir.
I'm Gatham Singh from Save Life Foundation, New Delhi, India.
It's great hearing about the institutional and international as well as national level funding mechanisms and all the great insights our panelists have shared.
Just adding to it from the district model that we discussed in the first panel and when it really comes to translating the commitments to grassroot level outcomes, one point of bringing in new money, of course, is most critical.
It provides the necessary impetus, not just for improvisation, but also innovation in road safety.
At the same time, the other side of the coin for us has been convergence of the existing monies that are, you know, available across different pockets.
Road safety has been emphasized enough since the morning to be a very interagency interdepartmental domain and not just a transportation or a ministerial domain.
Similarly, the monies are lying in these departmental or agency pockets, what we feel and the convergence has not been unlocked.
If at all, there would be some systems at the national level, particularly in LMICs when it comes to provincial or district level systems, you're not able to see different agencies not just collating their ideas, but also collating their funds and bringing together integrated execution plans for a road to be made safer, the road owning agency, the highway owner, the police which are responsible for the highway enforcement or the road enforcement.
We've spoken about electronic enforcement.
Who installs, who operates.
This would typically require multi agency participation in terms of monies as well.
That convergence is something that can be a critical component added to the commitments and the sub commitments when we discuss about them and the countries to develop The converging models not just at the national level, but at the last mile at the grassroots level where the monies have to spend and bringing in efficiency and optimization of financing existing financing is equally crucial is the point that I'd like to share and add.
Thank you.
Thank you, Save Live Foundation.
I now give the floor to the Network of Employers for Traffic Safety.
That will be followed then by International Road Victims Partnership, Network of Employers for Traffic Safety.
You have the floor.
President of the General Assembly, Excellency's colleagues and partners here in traffic safety.
I'm speaking on behalf of a network of employers, traffic safety, commonly known as nets.
This panel is obviously about financing and capacity and the truth seems pretty clear that we're not going to have deaths by 2030 without predictable investment and practical delivery capacity.
The UN progress report notes important momentum.
The UN Road Safety Fund has mobilized a broader mix of contributors.
And multilateral development banks allocated significant funding to road safety projects, yet the working group still concluded that the funding must be scaled up to achieve catalytic change, especially in low and middle income countries.
Employers, which is what we represent and some other groups here today also, we can help in three concrete ways.
First, employers can be part of a financing and implementation, not just plans.
The global plan highlights sustainable funding sources and bridging funds, including private sector sponsorship and philanthropic contributions.
Nets can help with that with measure and implement packages that establish baseline measurement, targeted interventions and evaluation and with the aim towards financing that buys outcomes, not just activity.
Second, employers can strengthen capacity through training, tools, and communities of practice.
The global plan is explicit that the lack of specialist knowledge is a barrier and that professional development networks are important platforms.
NETs would love to work with some of the groups we've already heard from today, FEA together for safe roads, helping create practical tools that translate policy into field practice.
Third, employers can use procurement power to accelerate safer vehicles and safer operations.
The global plan calls for private sector standards on vehicle safety levels for fleets.
Driver training, fatigue, and scheduling controls.
These actions don't replace government regulation, rather, they complement it and they can help the practices spread quickly through supply chains.
Sustainable financing strategies should explicitly recognize employers as co implementers and co investors.
Pairing public funds with private underwriting where appropriate and tie financing to measurable deliverables and build capacity by scaling what works through peer networks.
NTS stands ready to help in convening employers, looking at standardizing reporting and learning and helping co develop pilots that could be replicated business to business and country to country, especially with an eye towards helping low and middle income contexts where the burden is highest.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Now next on my list is International Road Victims Partnership, that will be followed then by Global Health Advocacy Incubator.
Now International Road Victims Partnership.
Thank you for the opportunity to contribute.
I'm contributing here today in my role as founder and chair of the International Road Victims Partnership.
My colleague Vivian opened the first panel here today and mentioned the loss of her son, Kevin.
I also lost my son, Darren.
But we don't do this work because we lost our children on the roads.
What we're doing is we're channeling our grief into taking positive action in order to try to prevent this devastation reaching further families.
I suppose we're in a unique position in that it's only by experiencing the aftermath of such a tragedy that we're aware of the shortcomings in the system, if you like, and so we want to work with all stakeholders to draw attention to or focus on the post crash response, which has always been a very neglected pillar in our road safety work.
Claudia mentioned, for instance, that Ireland is doing really well there.
We invest 20% of our infrastructure budget in safe walking and cycling.
But really, we're a high income country and we still have the same problem with road deaths and serious injuries escalating.
In fact, last year, we lost 190 people on our roads, which was the highest number in a decade and From our experience in losing a loved one on the roads and being thrown into dealing with the horrific aftermath of such a loss, having to deal with the legal systems that follow, for instance, we now know how important it is to have a thorough investigation into the loss of our children, to find out the causes of these collisions in order to try to prevent them.
And as Lata mentioned earlier, my colleague in the Global Alliance of NGOs for road safety, we can't manage what isn't measured.
And therein lies our problem.
We have to have thorough investigations.
We must share the data amongst all of the relevant stakeholders so that we can work to prevent these deaths recurring.
Professor Bokani from Johns Hopkins, NGO, we fully support the points he made about the relevance and importance of data collection and sharing.
And the focus of this panel is on sustainable financing and enhanced capacity.
And what we're looking for is to ensure that we have thorough investigations and appropriate capacity building, if you like, so that we do have those thorough investigations that we need and the sharing of the data amongst those who can work to prevent these deaths recurring.
Um, So that's it really.
Our main focus is on effective, having effective deterrence in place to ensure that people don't take a chance when out on the road, and we do have law breaking drivers every day on the roads.
So effective enforcement and even when the worst happens and people are killed and injured, we must establish the cause of these deaths and injuries in order to prevent them happening again.
We all know if there's a plane crash and we had one fairly recently, the helicopter crash down there on the Hudson River.
They remain in the news for months on end and yet these tragedies we hear very little about.
Why? Because they tend to be individual tragedies like my own with people left to fend for themselves.
So many of our NGOs are actually led and run by bereaved families who give up their time in their NGOs, which are largely unfunded.
We're really calling for sustainable financing for inclusion so that our voices can be heard.
Because as I said, we're coming from a unique position in that we are seeing the aftermath of these deaths and the systems and their failings.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, International Road Victims Partnership for intervention.
Next on my list is Global Health Advocacy Incubator, followed by World Lebanese Cultural Union.
Global Health Advocacy Incubator, you have the floor.
Thank you very much.
To think that more than 1.1 million people die every year from road crashes is staggering, including an ever increasing number of motorcyclists who in Colombia alone account for 60 plus percent of all road crash deaths.
More troubling is how easily this is accepted as normal.
We routinely label these incidents as accidents as if nothing could have been done when in reality, all these deaths and serious injuries could have been avoided.
Every day we at the Global Health advocacy incubator, collaborate with civil society partners to reframe this narrative because these are indeed preventable tragedies.
We know that a safe system approach, one that includes safer speeds, safer behaviors, vehicles, infrastructure, and of course, post crash response can lead us to a future where no one dies on our roads.
This approach also brings important co benefits, increased physical activity, reduced traffic congestion, fewer carbon emissions, fewer trips to the hospital, things we've all heard about today.
The right decisions and investments can and must integrate the safe system approach into budgeting, legislation, regulatory frameworks, and we therefore call on local, state, national governments everywhere to embrace this vision.
Additionally, we call for a formal role for civil society in monitoring implementation, plus specific commitments on motorcycle safety.
In Latin America, progress is already underway.
Mexico has passed a constitutional reform establishing the right to mobility and road safety along with the federal law to support it.
In Colombia, a national speed law came into being in 2022, and partners are developing speed management plans across municipalities throughout that country.
Colombia has also become the first country in Latin America to accede to the 1958 UN ECE Agreement on vehicle safety standards, and it should not be the last.
With these advancements and with this vision, the goal of reducing road crash fatalities by half by 2030 remains challenging, but is still within reach.
We must continue to commit, continue to find new allies, build political will, and ultimately succeed.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much for your intervention.
Now I give the floor to the World Lebanese Cultural Union to be followed by Shi Krishna Research Center.
Now the World Lebanese Cultural Union, you have the floor.
Maybe no more in the room.
Now let's turn to another speaker on the list, and that is Shiri Krishna Research Center.
Honorable Madam President of the General Assembly, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen.
I come to you from India with a vision to reduce the alarming global road safety crisis.
Despite global efforts during the last 20 years, there was no reduction in road crash deaths and injuries resulting in a loss of 25 million lives and 1 billion people injured during this period.
A staggering number, isn't it? As 90% of road crashes are attributed to driver error, there is an urgent need to focus on it.
How can we expect drivers to avoid a hazard that we have made it difficult for them to see? I'm referring to the A pillar.
The structural support on both sides of the windscreen present in all vehicles globally, creates a blind spot that can conceal the driver's view of pedestrians, cyclists, traffic, et cetera at critical times when drivers must make split second decisions to avert the crash? In 2006, I serendipitously identified the A pillar blind spot as a major cause for road deaths and injuries and proposed the A one pillar concept to provide drivers with an unobstructed view through improved design.
It involves shifting the A pillar back to the new A one position, giving drivers clear field of vision at all times.
I brought it to the notice of UN and other global bodies, including manufacturers.
After a decade when the numbers did not decrease, I had my own car modified with the A one pillar, carried out road tests to demonstrate the improved visibility, and published the findings in an article, Invisible cause of death in global Road Safety crisis and shared it with the global bodies and manufacturers.
Some changes have been noticed in the UN regulation 167 for heavy vehicles.
I respectfully urge the United Nations UNACE regulators, and vehicle manufacturers to prioritize driver visibility first.
If that is compromised, accidents will continue to take place.
And a new standard for the A one pillar after testing Goverments could support this transition through design incentives as they have done for electric vehicles.
Road crashes currently cost the global economy nearly 3.7 trillion a year and three to 5% of GDP.
Safer design will benefit all road users and save millions of lives.
The solution has been within reach.
I will conclude with a question for all of us.
When the next crash occurs because a driver is blinded by their own vehicle's A pillar, whose error is it really? The drivers or us for knowing the solution, but not acting on it.
Thank you.
Thank you for the intervention and for the question.
I have the last request for the floor on my list is Global Coalition for Traumatic Brain Injury.
You have the floor, Madam.
Chairs, Excellencies and distinguished delegates.
Namaste.
My name is Neha.
I speak today on behalf of Global Coalition for Traumatic Brain Injury, representing more than 60 million people worldwide, living with long term consequences of traumatic brain injury, alongside the families and caregivers whose lives continue to be shaped by traumatic injuries caused by road traffic accidents every day.
Today's discussion on multi sectorial coordination and improving global road safety has made one reality increasingly clear.
Every road traffic crash does not end at the site of impact.
For millions of survivors, it marks the beginning of lifelong neurological, physical, psychological, and socioeconomic consequences, requiring sustained systems of trauma care, rehabilitation, and long term support.
The global economic burden of traumatic brain injury is now estimated to exceed $500 billion annually.
Placing immense strain on individuals, families, health systems, and national economies, particularly across low to middle income countries.
This is precisely why road safety and traumatic brain injury cannot be addressed separately.
They are part of the same continuum of care and require coordinated financing, shared accountability, and multi sectorial collaboration.
Dear friends, I speak here today also from lived experience as someone personally affected by the consequences of inadequate road safety systems.
Today, an estimated 89% of traumatic brain injury cases occur in low middle income countries where road safety enforcements, trauma systems, neurological, surgical care, rehabilitation, and long term follow up services remain insufficiently developed or simply inaccessible.
As highlighted throughout this panel, road safety continues to operate in silos across sectors and systems.
Traumatic brain injury remains even further at margins of global health agenda.
Despite being one of the leading causes of mortality and disability associated with road traffic injuries, it continues to receive limited visibility within surveillance systems, financing fraworks, rehabilitative strategies, and long term policy planning.
If road safety is truly to remain at the front frontront of global agenda, traumatic brain injury must be recognized as a chronic, measurable, and identifiable condition within the national health systems and road safety strategies.
This conversation must also include meaningful engagement of young people.
Young people are not only disproportionately affected by road traffic injuries, we're also inheriting the long term consequences of the systems being shaped today.
As Mr.
Giovanni highlighted, during this panel, accountability must remain central to our collective action.
Advancing this resolution presents an opportunity for member states to demonstrate accountability to more than 60 million people living with traumatic brain injury globally and to the 2.8 billion young people who will inherit these health systems in decades to come.
Road safety cannot end with prevention alone.
It must encompass the full continuum of care from prevention and emergency response to rehabilitation, long term recovery, and sustained support for survivors, families and caregivers.
As Jane Goodall once stated, hope is a human survival trait.
For millions of families affected by traumatic brain injury, hope continues to sustain recovery, resilience and dignity amid profound emotional, financial, and social burdens.
The Global Coalition for Traumatic Brain Injury urges the Assembly to designate TBI as a notifiable and chronic condition within the National Health frameworks and integrate into the call to action for Global road safety.
Thank you so much.
Thank you for this intervention.
I still see one more intervention from the floor, if I'm not wrong, the UN ECE, am I right? Thank you very much, Ambassador for giving me the floor.
I'd like to make a short comment and thank all those who spoke about the UN regulations, including vehicle regulations that UNIC is very proud to host and work very hard on updating on a regular basis in the World Forum for Vehicle Regulations.
There are a number of important issues that relate to them.
One is the fact that we are playing catch up game with technology.
Both the vehicle manufacturers and the technology, tech sector more generally, are moving much faster than the UN is able to catch up with and the issues around automation, electrification, speed are very serious and we require full blown effort of the academic and NGO community to support us in this.
But we are working on this.
Uh, including on what automation brings, including on the quickly shifting patterns of active mobility, including on pedestrian protection.
I want to assure you and also the member states present in the room that this is a high priority for UNIC and we need member states to prioritize this as well.
Second problem is adoption of these regulations.
As Mr.
Ward mentioned, the economic benefits are very clear.
The social benefits are very clear and yet adoption remains limited.
We need while an effort together to make this happen in various regions of the world, Overcoming perception issues and misperception issues and overcoming cost issues as well.
We need to look into affordability, including for helmets, for power two wheelers, a critical issue as many people referred to and we're working with FAA Foundation and the global NGO Alliance on trying to find approaches to that.
Collision investigations is another big priority.
We have multidisciplinary collision investigations carried out in several countries.
Not enough though.
We need to work with authorities, with an NGO community in those countries and globally to bring to light what comes through those investigations and learn from those.
I'd like to reassure you again, we stand ready to support, but we need support and funding for that as well.
Finally, We need young people to be involved.
I welcome the very strong presence of youth.
We have in UI, an example of other thematic areas such as energy actually creating formal groups of young people influencing policy development and regulation development.
Perhaps we could consider doing this for road safety, vehicle regulations, as well as future of traffic rules more generally.
Thank you very much.
Very good.
This concludes the list of speakers.
Thank you all of you for your valuable interventions and questions.
Now I turn back to the panelists and I'm allowed to give you each 1 minute to respond to all that was mentioned here and maybe to make some final message for our participants.
Let's follow the order from the very beginning.
Miss Kay Duncan, let's start with you.
Fabulous.
Thank you so much.
Thanks for the comments and questions.
I think what we're hearing today is the reality that our financing for road safety is currently failing us.
A lot of when we're looking at our infrastructure and our transport, we're looking at our budgets in the same silos that we're trying to work in.
I again, implore the member states to step back, think bigger picture around the implications of making the wrong decisions of our transport budgets are felt through climate, are felt through health care costs.
How can we challenge our norms and break up the current systems a little bit to do this a little bit differently? If you're not the annoying person in the room putting up your hand and asking how we can do things differently, chances are no one else is going to do it either and we're going to get stuck with the same set of challenges for decades to come.
So I encourage you to ask yourselves, what if you cared more about your kids than cars? How would your cities look different? How would you make different decisions on a daily basis? I ask you to support and encourage the courageous leadership, political leadership that is required to make these kinds of changes, to bring the capacity building and the training to the technicians who have to do this stuff on a daily basis to rethink and reshape our streets.
To implement projects, show people what's possible when we do it differently and collect data to demonstrate so that we can shift away from anecdotal conversations around pushback and instead actually have fair and equitable conversations around the types of investments we're making in our cities.
Please rethink the street in your cities, in your countries, update your policies, your design guidance, the stuff that is often written 50, 60 years ago.
Take a look.
We've got a global Street design guide out there designing streets for kids.
We've got resources that you can look at, endorse while you're in the process of updating your own.
We look forward to working with all of you in this process.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, miss Claudia Andrés lato, floor is yours.
Thank you very much.
I leave this room really energized and with a lot of hope because there is a big community that wants to do a lot of big things.
I just want to leave you with two dons and four dos.
The first one is don't think that this is a fate issue.
That people are dying, the son of Viviana or the brothers of Pablo.
That's not a fate issue.
It's a system issue and we need to work, not on silver bullets.
As Donna well said, it's amazing that Ireland is putting this 20% investment in active mobility, but we have to look at more.
What else is failing there? It's a system, don't look at this issue in a very narrow lens.
We need a system approach.
The second, don't continue doing business as usual.
Insanity is doing the same thing in thinking that we are going to get different results, right? So we need to really think about what are those infrastructure budgets doing today and how we can achieve that? That might mean we need to have a conversation with the people on budgeting in the infrastructure department in the transport department to just help them and train them and work with all these other decision makers.
What need to do right now? Speed.
Speed management to save speeds can save life tomorrow.
In Bogota, there is a new road that is called Gualcanees.
That road, as soon as it was inaugurated in April 2024 to September killed eight people.
The city decided to put speed humps every 200 meters to reduce the speed to what it was designed.
Until now there is no one more single death.
You can do it, you can work on that, you can advocate on that.
Where is the investment for public transport and active mobility? We cannot continue relying all of us in moving in private vehicles.
We need to connect to other agendas.
The same delegations that are here are also working on NDCs.
You have to make sure there is a link.
Finally, working proactively and not proactively.
We all know where are those big roads that kill people.
We don't need to wait for one more person to die.
We can act now.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Let me quickly turn to Mr.
Ward.
David, you have the floor.
Thanks.
I'll be very quick.
Clavia mentioned speed management critical issue.
Technology and standards doesn't have to be national.
Cities can take great initiatives.
In this city and also in London, the bus fleets and vehicle fleets are being fitted with ISA intelligent Speed Assistance, which is a intelligent speed humps.
They're great initiatives.
They can be retrofitted.
If there's one technology that can really deal with speed, it's intelligent speed assistance.
It's something we would strongly recommend.
Thank you.
Okay.
And finally, last but not least, Mr.
Silverman.
I'll be very quick.
To build on Claudia's point, if you're going to pick one area of the sustainable development agenda by 2030, with road safety, you have an area where it's preventable.
You can make tremendous progress and that progress comes at a time where we have tremendous opportunity, a huge shift in transportation to electrification, to possibilities for investment in mass transit.
With the technology, it doesn't always mean that we need to look at the most sophisticated level of technology that is out there and grasp for something that isn't fully implemented.
Automation has many promises, but if we focus on what's within our grasp now, areas like ABS for motorcycles, like ISA, as we've just heard, key challenges that are facing us now with motorcycle safety, where there can be huge advances in terms of the helmet standards, the regulations around helmets across low and middle income countries and a real strong focus on what needs to be done on infrastructure that doesn't necessarily have to mean huge amounts of new financing, but making much better use of the existing financing and existing levels of commitment linking in with other economic and environmental priorities, we can make great strides forward.
We shouldn't be put off by a target that we're concerned about for 2030, but we should look at what we can achieve over the next, few years and that is a lot and it's all within our grasp.
It requires far greater levels of commitment.
It requires far smarter financing, and it requires taking the messages that you've heard this morning back to your capitals and having a renewed impetus for road safety at the high level meeting.
Thank you.
Excellent.
Thank you very much, Mr.
Silverman.
Thank you all panelists for sharing your valuable perspectives.
Please join me to thank them.
I think it was a Excellent.
I know that the interpreters are indicating that it's 1:00.
My last sentence to all of you.
Thank you very much for coming.
Let's work on the progress Declaration.
I think we have a lot of food for thought that could be incorporated there.
And well, have a safe trip back home and drive safely and have safe roads.
And so on.
Thank you very much once again and all the best.
Thanks.