The World Health Organisation (WHO) has stressed the need for Ghana and the rest of Africa to implement holistic policies and measures that will halve the number of crashes, injuries and deaths related to road accidents by 2030 in accordance with Target 3.6 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The global health institution said those policies must promote sustainable transportation systems, improved legislative road safety frameworks, investment in data management systems, improved post-crash response, and research tailored to the continent’s unique challenges.
It further stressed that the policies must be targeted at dealing with a myriad of factors that triggered road crashes, including lethargic enforcement of traffic laws, potholed roads, speeding and drunk driving and limited safety education targeting road users. WHO made the call as part of recommendations of its 2023 status report on road safety in the African region, which was launched in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
The report indicated that Africa had become an epicenter of deaths arising from road crashes, exerting strain on the continent’s public health infrastructure and threatening efforts to attain SDG 3.6 – halve the number of global deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents by 2030. For instance, the report established that although the continent accounted for 15 per cent of the global population and three per cent of vehicles, it recorded 20 per cent of all road crash deaths in the world.
Again, the report revealed that road traffic death rates in the past decade had increased significantly in the African region, with almost 250,000 lives lost on the continent’s roads in 2021 alone. Specifically, from 2010 to 2021, deaths from road crashes in Africa increased by 17 per cent, while the global rates fell by five per cent. It added that males aged between 15 and 64 years were the main victims of road traffic crashes, with vulnerable road users, such as motorcyclists, cyclists and pedestrians, being the worst affected.
