In 2010, concerned about the very high and increasing burden of road traffic crashes around the world, the
United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 64/2551
, which proclaimed 2011–2020 the Decade of
Action for Road Safety. The goal of the Decade is to reduce the increasing trend in road traffic deaths, and to
save an estimated 5 million lives over the period. The Resolution followed the publication of the first Global
status report on road safety2
, which had showed, among other major findings, that the African Region had one
of the highest rates of road traffic deaths, along with the Eastern Mediterranean Region.
In order to guide national responses to achieve the decade goal, a global Plan of Action3 was developed. It
provides a practical tool to support governments and other national stakeholders in the development of
national and local plans of action, as well as a framework for coordination of activities at regional and global
levels. It was determined that the improvement of road safety would be hinged on improvement in the
following five areas, also termed pillars for the decade: road safety management, safer roads and mobility,
safer vehicles, safer road users, and post-crash response.
UN General Assembly Resolution 64/255 also called for regular monitoring of the global progress towards
meeting the targets identified in the Plan of Action.
The data collection , for each country was based on a standard questionnaire which was filled by a multisectoral
group of respondents and validated in a consensus meeting. The data were cleaned and analysed and
modeling was used to adjust all reported deaths to the standard thirty day definition.
This AFRO factsheet is developed with data from the second Global status report on road safety 2013:
supporting a decade of action which serves as the baseline to monitor the Decade of Action for Road Safety.
Of the 46 countries that make up the African Region, 44 countries participated
4
. Except where otherwise
stated, the data and analyses presented are based on the responses of those 44 countries, home to 95.1% of the
regional population. Data are provided on the burden of road crashes (deaths, injuries, economic cost) and the
state of implementation of interventions related to the above pillars