UN Special Envoy at high level meetings

High level meetings in Latin America and Africa have been the latest staging posts for the campaign by the UN Special Envoy for Road Safety, Jean Todt, to galvanise countries to do more to meet the Sustainable Development Goals road safety target and to approve a new UN Road Safety Fund.

During August, Jean Todt has met with government leaders in several countries in Latin America and the Caribbean as well as giving the annual lecture at the Federal Road Safety Corps in Nigeria, where he held discussions with the country’s Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo.

The Office of the UN Secretary General Special Envoy for Road Safety, based at the UNECE in Geneva, which coordinates the envoy visits and also leads policy missions to advise governments, is co-funded with a grant from the FIA Foundation.

Together, the UNECE and the Special Envoy are spearheading efforts to establish a new UN Road Safety Fund.

UNECE estimates that US$770 million a year in international funding, over a decade, is needed to catalyse and support country road safety strategies in order to meet the SDG target to halve road traffic deaths. The latest round of consultation on the proposed fund was closed during August.