The Road Ahead
Issue 8
Welcome to Issue 8 of The Road Ahead, WHO's newsletter on road safety. The newsletter is now entirely electronic and delivered to your email by list serve. This format will enable more rapid translation and will also mean that the newsletter can be sent out more widely and more regularly.
PAST EVENTS
World Health Assembly adopts resolution on trauma care
The World Health Assembly adopted its first resolution on emergency trauma care systems in May 2007. Initially proposed by Romania and Thailand, the Resolution draws the attention of governments to the need to strengthen pre-hospital and emergency trauma care systems and describes a number of steps governments could take. Twenty seven governments representing countries from all regions and income levels spoke in support of the Resolution thereby underlining the importance of the issue. In their remarks, governments were unanimous in stressing their support. Many countries highlighted the growing burden of injuries - particularly those due to road traffic crashes - and violence and the challenge to develop adequate responses in low resource settings. "Strengthening our emergency trauma care systems is probably our number one most important challenge in improving health systems" stated a delegate from an African country. Although not legally binding, the Resolution is an important commitment from senior public health and development officials around the world to increase efforts to strengthen trauma care systems.
The final resolution will be available soon at:
http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/services/en/
First UN Global Road Safety Week
From 23-29 April, the First UN Global Road Safety Week was celebrated in almost all countries around the world. The theme of the Week was "young road users". Hundreds of national and local events took place or are planned for the coming weeks. Information on many of these has been placed on the UN Road Safety Collaboration website:
http://www.who.int/roadsafety/week/en/index.html
If you have more information on country events that took place during the Week, please send this information to:
lauwerss@who.int
World Youth Assembly: The first World Youth Assembly for Road Safety was held at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland from 23-24 April 2007, as the key global event for the Week. Nearly 400 young delegates from 100 countries, discussed road safety, and came up with plans of how to implement the Youth Declaration for Road Safety at the national and international levels. For more information please see
http://www.who.int/roadsafety/week/activities/global/youth/en/index.html
At the Assembly the WHO's Director General launched the new report Youth and road safety, which highlights the magnitude of the road safety epidemic in those under 25 globally, as well as another document, Faces behind the figures, developed with ASIRT, which includes testimonials of those affected by road traffic crashes. Please see:
http://www.who.int/roadsafety/week/en/index.html
http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/publications/road_traffic/youth_roadsafety/en/index.html
http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/road_traffic/activities/faces/en/index.html
During the Assembly, awards were given for a short-film competition and an essay competition. For more information please see:
http://www.unicef.org/voy/takeaction/takeaction_3777.html
Second Global Road Safety Stakeholders' Forum: On 25 April 2007 the Second Global Road Safety Stakeholders' Forum was held, convening representatives of governments, United Nations agencies, civil society and the private sector. The objectives of the Forum were to raise awareness about road traffic injuries; strengthen demand for road safety; build political will; support ongoing sustainable and collaborative efforts to implement the recommendations of the World report on road traffic injury prevention; and contribute to identifying and mobilizing resources. For more information please see:
http://www.taskforce.org/grsf2.asp
6th Meeting of the UN Road Safety Collaboration hosted in Muscat, Sultanate of Oman
The 6th Meeting of the UN Road Safety Collaboration was held 27-28 February 2007, hosted by the Sultanate of Oman's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Royal Oman Police at the new Royal Oman Police Traffic Safety Institute. The 38 international participants represented a number of global road safety organizations, NGOs, donors, and the private sector. A key focus of the meeting was the preparations for the First UN Global Road Safety Week. For more information please visit:
http://www.who.int/roadsafety/events/un_roadsafety_collab6/en/index.html
Malaysia opens new road safety institute
In January this year Malaysia formally established a new road safety institute - MIROS (the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety). Through conducting research, MIROS will generate and disseminate road safety information widely, as well as conducting an active training programme. Included in their research agenda are studies to establish cost effective road safety interventions to enhance the current road safety level nationally and internationally. The organization will be headed by Professor Dr. Ir Radin Umar as Foundation Director General. For more information please see:
http://ww.miros.gov.my/
A Global Fleet Safety Benchmarking Workshop was held in Bangkok on 21-22 March 2007. The workshop was organized by Benchmarking Partnerships and the ARRB Group, and involved over 50 participants from a range of governmental and private sector organisations. Through an exchange of knowledge, experience and expertise the participants examined practices that can be implemented to manage work-related road safety. It also explored the ways that organisations can interact with the community to reduce road related injury risk. For more information see:
http://ww.benchmarkingpartnerships.com.au
UPCOMING EVENTS
Multisectoral forum on road safety in China: A multisectoral forum on road safety in China will be held in Beijing from 25-26 June 2007 hosted by the Ministry of Health and WHO China. The objectives of the meeting are to strengthen multisectoral links and collaboration and to discuss how to progress towards reducing road traffic deaths and injuries in China. A number of international experts will exchange information about best practices and these will be complemented by experience from national experts. For more information please contact Dr Chris Tunon
TunonC@chn.wpro.who.int
For logistic information please contact Helen Chen in the WHO China office.
chenhe@chn.wpro.who.int
Private companies meeting on road safety: WHO is organising a conference to strengthen the private sector's involvement in road safety. This conference will be held in Shanghai, 13-14 November. The event is timed to coincide with the Challenge Bibendum (14-17 November) which will bring together hundreds of representatives from the private and public sector to discuss sustainable mobility. For more information on the conference please contact Mr. Matts Belin at:
belinm@who.int
PIARC road safety congress: The next PIARC Congress will take place in Paris, from 17-21 September 2007. This will include a special session on road safety issues and policies in developing countries. For more information please contact Hans-Joachim Vollpracth, on:
h_vollpracht@hotmail.com
or go to:
http://www.piarc.org/en/events/piarc-congress/
PUBLICATIONS
Posters, public service announcements, and road safety documentary:
To disseminate the key messages of the first UN Global Road Safety Week, WHO commissioned a series of posters ("Road Marks"), a series of public service announcements (short video clips, known as "public alarm") as well as a documentary film (Collision Course), available for use by all WHO partners. For more information please see:
http://www.who.int/roadsafety/week/resources/posters/en/index.html
http://www.who.int/roadsafety/week/resources/multimedia/en/index.html
To request copies of any these products please contact us at
traffic@who.int
Drinking and Driving: a road safety manual for decision-makers and practitioners is now available: The international good practice manual Drinking and Driving, a road safety manual for decision-makers and practitioners, produced in partnership by GRSP, WHO, the FIA Foundation, and the World Bank. Developed under the leadership of GRSP, the manual is now available in both electronic and printed form. The manual is the second in a series of road safety good practice manuals being published as part of the UN Road Safety Collaboration series. The purpose of the manual is to inform readers of practical ways to develop coordinated and integrated programmes to reduce drinking and driving (including drivers and passengers of motorized two-wheelers). In many countries road users who are impaired by alcohol have a significantly higher risk of being involved in a crash involving death and severe injuries. The World report on road traffic injury prevention identifies programmes aimed at preventing drinking and driving as a proven effective measure to reduce death and injury on the road. To download the manual visit :
http://www.grsproadsafety.org
IFRC document on road safety: The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, in collaboration with the Global Road Safety Partnership, have released a new publication Practical guide on road safety: a toolkit for national Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. The document describes the activities of national Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in the field of road safety, and includes practical recommendations that can be undertaken as possible improvements to this work. For more information please go to:
http://www.grsproadsafety.org/
Faces behind the figures - the voices of those affected. The Association for Safe International Road Travel and the World Health Organization have jointly developed a book entitled "Faces behind the figures: voices of road traffic crash victims and their families", to put a human face on the statistics presented in the many road safety reports published around the world. For more information visit:
http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/road_traffic/activities/faces/en/index.html
FEVR releases manual on organizing a World Day of Remembrance: The World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims was started by RoadPeace in 1993 and since then has been observed and promoted worldwide by several NGOs, including the European Federation of Road Traffic Victims (FEVR). This manual, jointly produced by FEVR and WHO provides guidance on organizing events for countries wishing to commemorate World Day of Remembrance. For more information see:
http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/road_traffic/activities/remembrance_day_handbook/
en/index.html
Preventing injuries and violence: a guide for ministries of health was released by WHO in May. The document sets out the role of ministries of health in the prevention and management of injuries and violence and the development of effective injury and violence prevention programmes. The document is available in print form in English, and translations are under way in Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish. For more information please see:
http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2007/978924155254_eng.pdf