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Delivered by Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana

05 December 2022

ESCAP ES

Mr. Jean Todt, Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Road Safety,

Distinguished participants, ladies and gentlemen,

It is my pleasure to join you in this important partnership meeting, as road safety continues to be a serious concern globally as well as in the Asia-Pacific region.

Road fatalities in the region have decreased by 12.13 per cent between 2016 and 2019.

This improvement can also be seen in the decrease in the region’s proportion of global road deaths from 62.8 per cent in 2016 to 58.5 per cent in 2019.

While these figures show us a glimpse of hope for the upcoming year, our Decade of Action for Road Safety was completed with relatively high numbers. Thus, our work to improve road safety cannot end with it.

Last December, the Ministerial Conference on Transport adopted the Regional Action Programme for Sustainable Transport Development in Asia and the Pacific 2022-2026, which identified road safety as a regional priority.

The Programme identified the development of the Regional Plan of Action for Asia and the Pacific for the Second Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021-2030 in line with the Global Plan.

I am pleased to inform you that, at the 7th Committee on Transport held in Bangkok two weeks ago, the Committee considered and welcomed the Regional Plan of Action for Asia and the Pacific in line with the Global Plan.

At the country level, under the UN Road Safety Fund, ESCAP is currently implementing two projects: one is to improve the driver licensing system in Lao PDR and the other aims to strengthen the capacity of the National Road Safety Commission of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Additionally, it is my great pleasure to confirm that ESCAP will collaborate with ECE, UNDP, UN-Habitat, and WHO to implement projects to further promote road safety in the region.

Furthermore, in addressing the challenge related to road safety-related data,  we are working with development partners, including ADB, the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) and the World Bank, to support countries towards effective implementation of the Asia-Pacific Road Safety Observatory (APRSO).

Distinguished participants, ladies and gentlemen,

This sixth partnership meeting is a golden opportunity for our discussion as we need to further strengthen our internal collaboration within the UN and scale up joint efforts in addressing road safety issues in the upcoming years.

I would like to thank the Special Envoy for organizing this meeting and for the continued close collaboration.

Two weeks ago, we had the pleasure of welcoming Mr. Todt to the ESCAP premises in Bangkok and had the honour of having him join the High-level Roundtable on “Achieving transport-related Sustainable Development Goals through sustainable, inclusive and resilient transport development in the Asia-Pacific region.”

We also worked closely with the Special Envoy and the secretariat of the United Nations Road Safety Fund (UNRSF) to organize a side event on “Sustainable Mobility for Asia and the Pacific. We look forward to further enhancing collaborations with the UN family in saving valuable lives on the road.

Thank you very much.

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