The United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety has been mentioned many times over the past year and in 2011, we witness the historic launch in May. Yet, while the Decade of Action means real change for road safety globally, where did it come from? Our youth network representative from India, Ms Anupama Kumar writes here about the key milestones that lead to the Decade and the involvement of YOURS.
As YOURS has repeatedly reiterated, road traffic crashes are among the leading causes of preventable death of young people worldwide. We are therefore very excited indeed that 2011-2020 has been declared the Decade of Action for Road Safety by the United Nations. What have the events leading up to this been?
The landmark event in identifying road safety as a global health concern was the United Nations General Assembly Resolution of October, 2005 (UN Doc. A/RES/60/5), identifying the importance of road safety as a global health concern which also affected young people worldwide. The resolution also reaffirmed the need to focus on road safety strategies by countries all over the world. This was followed by a series of initiatives by various UN Agencies, such as WHO and UNECE.
What followed was the First UN Global Road Safety Week in April 2007. An important part of this week was the first United Nations World Youth Assembly in April, 2007. The World Youth Assembly, which was to become the beginning of YOURS, brought together young people from all over the world to discuss road safety, a concern that united them all. With over 400 young people from all corners of the globe, young people adopted the World Youth Declaration for Road Safety.
The great leap forward though, was the First Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety in Moscow, 2009. Here, various stakeholders from all over the world came together to debate on various matters of road safety. The Moscow meeting culminated in the Moscow Declaration, which further reiterated the importance of Road Safety as a global concern and asked for a Decade of Action for Road Safety. It was also here that YOURS brought together over 20 youth delegates who wrote and endorsed the Moscow Youth Declaration for Road Safety. You can view some of the video testimonials here.
Finally, in 2010, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution declaring 2011-2020 as the Decade of Action for Road Safety. The resolution was co-sponsored by more than 100 countries. You can view the video report, made by YOURS, here.
So what is to take place this Decade? As the Global Plan on Road Safety states, the focus of this decade will be on preventing deaths from road safety. The five pillars on which this will focus, therefore, will be road safety management, safer roads, safer vehicles, safer road users and improved crash response. Young people play a role in each of these, in particular, advocating and networking with other young people in ensuring that these goals are reached, and this is one of the roles that YOURS seeks to play this decade.