Road safety: saving lives beyond 2020 in the Asia-Pacific region
Road safety is a sustainable development challenge for the Asia-Pacific region. The Global Status Report on Road Safety published in 2018 by the World Health Organization indicated that more than 60 per cent of the global road fatalities occurred in the Asia-Pacific region. A number of global and regional initiatives have been undertaken in recent years. The General Assembly Resolution 74/299 of 31 August 2020 proclaimed the period 2021-2030 as the “Second Decade of Action for Road Safety” with a goal to reduce road fatalities and injuries by 50 percent between 2021 and 2030. The United Nations Road Safety Fund (UNRSF) was established in 2018 as a UN Multi-Partner Trust Fund. The most recent regional initiatives in the Asia-Pacific region include the ESCAP resolution 74/3 adopted by the member countries in 2018. In early 2019, the ESCAP secretariat joined the initiative of development partners with a view to helping member countries in improving road crashes and road safety-related data for making best use of them in evidence-based policymaking. The study identified a few road safety-related important topics and recommendations were made towards improving road safety in the new decade.
