On the 9th to the 11th of November, members of the Chariots of Destiny Organization joined over 100 delegates present to attend the Second African Road Safety Conference. This conference held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia aimed at examining and validating the African Road Safety Action Plan devised for the ongoing Decade of Action for Road Safety as well as agreeing on a mobilization strategy to support the implementation of the Action Plan.
Speaking during the conference, the Deputy Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), Mr. Abdalla Hamdok, intimated that road crashes are the second leading cause of death for age groups between 5 to 44 years in African countries which in turn causes a heavy toll on African economies. He underscored that the high crash incidence is attributed to "poor road networks, inadequate road signage, limited knowledge on road safety, poorly enforced legislation and the poor emergency-preparedness by medical facilities."
Testimonies by road crash victims from Ethiopia and South Africa's Maputo Corridor brought home the gut-wrenching impact of the carnage and the reality of the statistics. Globally, more than 1.2 million people die in road crashes around the world and 65 per cent of these deaths are pedestrians who do not own cars. Much worse, 35 percent of pedestrian deaths are innocent children. The majority of these deaths, about 70 percent, occur in developing countries. Estimates suggest that the economic cost of road traffic accidents to African countries amounts to US$10 billion per year which is about two per cent of GNP.
Ethiopia’s President Girma Wolde Giorgis welcomed the African Action Plan and said it would assist in “promoting awareness of the huge economic losses and human suffering caused by road crashes”.
The African Road Safety Action Plan 2011-2020 - is document containing five broad issues that will form the basis for the outcomes of the discussions: Road Safety Management; Safer Roads and Mobility; Safer Vehicles; Safer Road Users and Post-crash Response.
