SAFE ROADS FOR ALL A POST-2015 AGENDA FOR HEALTH AND DEVELOPMENT Commission for Global Road Safety SAFE ROADS FOR ALL A POST-2015 AGENDA FOR HEALTH AND DEVELOPMENT Contents Foreword: 1 Rt. Hon. Lord Robertson of Port Ellen The world I want: 3 Zoleka Mandela Executive summary 5 1 The Decade of Action 9 for Road Safety: from 1 The Decade of Action for policy progress to Road Safety: from policy practical delivery progress to practical delivery 2 A plague on the 21 The Decade of Action provides a young: the global strong platform, but future progress burden of traffic injuries depends on ramping up political and financial commitment. 9 3 Putting people first: 29 a post-2015 agenda for mobility 4 Funding a strategy for 47 child and youth survival 5 Safe roads for all 57 The Long Short Walk 59 References 63 2 A plague on the young: the global burden of traffic Acknowledgements 65 injuries New studies confirm that young Commission for 66 people face their greatest risk of Global Road Safety death or disability when travelling on our roads and streets. 21 | SAFE ROADS FOR ALL Contents 3 Putting people first: 5 Safe roads for all a post-2015 agenda for Safe roads, like education and mobility healthcare, should be a right for all. Now we need a post-2015 Goal to Safe and sustainable road deliver action. 57 transport, with ‘Safe System’ speed management at its heart, must be a post-2015 priority. 29 4 Funding a strategy for child The Long Short Walk and youth survival The Long Short Walk is a global New sources of funding are urgently campaign for road traffic injury needed to drive a global effort to prevention to be included within the protect young and vulnerable road post-2015 Sustainable Development users. 47 Goals framework. 59 | SAFE ROADS FOR ALL Foreword: Rt. Hon. Lord Robertson of Port Ellen Foreword: Rt. Hon. Lord Robertson of Port Ellen Over the next two years the international Commission has recommended. The response community will decide on the priorities that will of bilateral donors, multilateral institutions, the replace the Millennium Development Goals and private sector and large philanthropies has, with define the post-2015 sustainable development a few honourable exceptions, been miserably agenda. Road traffic injury prevention must be inadequate. part of this framework. Visionary leadership is needed. The international As highlighted in the recently published Global diplomacy of the Russian Federation, building Burden of Disease 2010 study – funded by the Bill on strong foundations laid by the Sultanate of & Melinda Gates Foundation – road crashes are Oman, has been and will continue to be crucial the leading cause of death for young people. For in galvanising international action. Russia boys and men, injuries sustained while travelling hosted the First Global Ministerial Conference on our roads and streets are, next to HIV/AIDS, on Road Safety, sponsored the Decade of Action the leading killer from age 5 to 40. Road crashes resolution at the United Nations, and argued for are a global epidemic, a preventable plague on road safety to be included at Rio+20. Recently the young. others have taken up the call, and President Dilma Roussef of Brazil highlighted the impact of We are now two years into the UN Decade of road deaths on her country in her major speech Action for Road Safety 2011-2020. The launch of to the UN’s opening session in 2012. the Decade, and the ten year advocacy campaign that preceded it, have succeeded in increasing These efforts should now be redoubled and awareness of road safety amongst some low- and focused on delivering practical action in the middle-income governments and international context of the post-2015 agenda. The ‘Rio+20’ institutions. As the World Health Organization’s UN Conference on Sustainable Development, new Global Status Report on Road Safety has the launch-pad for the current debate on future found, there has been a sustained effort by some ‘Sustainable Development Goals’, recognised countries to introduce new road traffic laws and the importance of road safety in contributing road fatality reduction targets. But progress is to wider environmental and developmental too slow. Even today only 28 countries have objectives. It is now well past time for road comprehensive legislation for major causes of traffic injury prevention to be included in the road injury such as speeding, drink driving or mainstream of efforts to improve global health, failing to use seatbelts or motorcycle helmets. combat climate change and tackle inequality There has been no overall reduction in road and poverty. The absence of road safety is one fatalities and many countries, including some connecting symptom of all these 21st century leading economies, are still in denial about the challenges. Now, in the post-2015 debate, we extent of their road safety problem. have an unprecedented opportunity to build a wide and strong coalition committed to working International financial and technical assistance together to make roads safe for all. to help governments of low- and middle- income countries to develop their capacity and to catalyse road safety programmes is urgently Rt. Hon. Lord Robertson of Port Ellen needed. Funding has been far below the level our Chairman, Commission for Global Road Safety | SAFE ROADS FOR ALL 2 The Mandela family is leading The Long Short Walk campaign calling for road safety to be included in the post-2015 development agenda. Facing page: Nelson Mandela with Zenani Mandela, who died in a road crash in 2010. The world I want: Zoleka Mandela The world I want: Zoleka Mandela My generation has an opportunity to make a our future - taking the lives of more young people difference. It’s all too easy to be cynical, to say than anything else. It is the number one killer of that the big problems in the world like poverty 15-29 year-olds worldwide. And it is those living in and hunger are just too difficult to solve. You the developing world who are suffering the most. hear the criticism quite often. That it’s all just a lot of words, too much hot air, and little in the way In my country like other fast developing nations, of meaningful action. The critics should listen to I see the increasing numbers of cars on the roads, my grandfather. I remember him talking a few the new roads being built every day and large years ago about the need to come together and numbers of people who have never lived in such support the Millennium Development Goals. He an environment. And we are facing unacceptable said: “Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not numbers of deaths and injuries in what should natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome be young, vibrant cities, full of hope for the and eradicated by the actions of human beings.” future. We should be nurturing and protecting And over the last few years, we’ve seen just this future, not contributing to the numbers of what can be achieved when the international casualties by neglecting road safety. community comes together – the progress that has been made in tackling extreme poverty and It does not need to be this way. We know exactly hunger and the action on killer diseases like how to prevent road deaths and injuries. We Malaria. We know that much more needs to be have the answers, but too often the solutions done. As the world starts planning for post-2015, are not being put in place. Our governments are we are at a critical point where we can take stock, responsible for road safety, but they clearly need and take the agenda forward where we’ve come help. And as with the other development issues, up short. and the man-made problems, help and support must As my grandfather urged, our come from the international efforts should be focused on the community if the solutions are global problems that we have to work. In the years after 2015, the duty and the ability to solve. more countries will move along Sometimes, people wonder why the path that South Africa has there should be such a focus on been on, increasing the pace other people’s problems and on of development. But there will other people’s lives in far-away be a high price to pay, if the places. Perhaps they forget that life-saving measures that are we live in one world, and that it’s needed to protect people on a world we are building for our the roads aren’t part of our children and for their future. countries’ development policies. And we must ask the I lost my daughter, Zenani when international community to she was only 13. In a matter of keep this at the forefront of their minds when seconds, her world and her future was destroyed. they are putting together the big agenda for And with her, a huge part of my world was gone international development for the years ahead. too. For the sake of all our children, for our world There are certain issues that we must not neglect and the future we want, we must make sure we as we build a better future. Road injury is one of include road safety this time round. them. It’s a question of the future I want. Road injury is one of those man-made problems that we have the ability to solve, and it is a major threat to Zoleka Mandela | SAFE ROADS FOR ALL 4 Executive summary • Safe mobility should be a basic right for all.