Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has endorsed a Road Safety Policy and Action Plan with the goal of halving road crash fatalities by the end of the next decade.
The decision was reached at a meeting by ministers in charge of transport and road safety activities in ECOWAS member states.
The virtual meeting was held to consider actionable measures and strategies to address the alarming level of road crash fatalities being recorded in the region.
Ministers and heads of road safety agencies from Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, The Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo all attended the meeting.
Reports show that 16 percent of road fatalities and crashes in the world occur in West Africa.
‘The ECOWAS road safety policy will set the regional vision and will be accompanied by a regional regulation or road safety charter with commitments by member states to improve road safety through the eradication of identified risk factors’, ECOWAS said in a statement.
According to ECOWAS, an average of 6,000 deaths per annum are recorded in the region as a result of road traffic accidents.
The Commissioner for Infrastructure of the ECOWAS Commission, Pathe Gueye, highlighted the gloomy situation of road-traffic-related deaths and injuries in the region.
According to him, data from the diagnostics studies and confirmed by UN estimates show that the annual cost of road traffic accidents in West Africa is estimated at between three and five percent of GDP, notably more than what the region may receive in terms of development aid.
Source: ECOWAS
Photo source: Ben Freeman
