Between 18-20 February, the EaP RSO Technical Secretariat along with our local country consultants travelled to Marrakech to join the Fourth Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety, organised by the Government of the Kingdom of Morocco and the World Health Organisation.

The Conference marks the halfway point of the United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021-2030, and with just five years left to achieve the Global Goals for Sustainable Development, participants from across the world gathered to assess progress, identify priorities, share knowledge, forge and strengthen alliances, and advance commitments and actions to save more lives on the world’s roads.

During the Conference we were pleased to meet up with our data consultants and Ministerial Delegations from four of our member countries to exchange ideas, share experiences and plan for the future.

Throughout the Conference data and the role of road safety observatories were referenced as playing a critical role in helping to achieve the Global Goals. We are proud that the EaP RSO was able to play a central role in these discussions with our Deputy Head of the Technical Secretariat, Emma MacLennan leading the flagship parallel session on Leveraging Data for Road Safety on the final day of the conference.

The role of data is also referenced in the Marrakech Declaration, the official outcome document of the Conference that was presented at the Closing Ceremony. Notably, point 22 calls upon Member States “to strengthen the collection of data define and monitor key road safety performance indicators including evidence-based targets for non-fatal injuries, to inform the implementation of the Global Plan for the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021–2030.”

As the newest of the regional road safety observatories, the Ministerial Conference also presented an important opportunity for us to introduce the work of the EaP RSO to the wider global road safety community. Asu such, we organised our own networking event with the aim of bringing together road safety stakeholders from the region as well as further afield to celebrate this important development towards improving road safety in a region where road casualties are disproportionately high.

Speaking at the event, Sarah Lynch, Policy Officer for the Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport (DG MOVE) at the European Commission spoke of their support for our work and her hopes for the region, which are optimistic even in sometimes difficult contexts. This sentiment was shared by Elena Lungu of the World Bank who also welcomed the work of the Observatory and stressed the importance of working together to use road safety data to improve road safety and reduce casualties.

Overall, the Conference was an energising and inspiring experience and a great start to our second year of work. As we return home, we will focus on following up on the commitments made by member countries and continue to support them in their mission to improve data collection and analysis, and assist in guiding the implementation of evidence-based road safety interventions to meet national, regional and global targets.