Dakar Declaration [UPSC Notes]

The World Health Organization’s (WHO) African Region has seen a significant number of road crash fatalities in recent years, with an estimated 246,000 deaths annually. However, nearly half of the countries in the region have committed to reducing these numbers by enhancing their reporting on road crash fatalities and adopted the Dakar Declaration. Know more about the Dakar Declaration 2021 in this article. This topic is relevant for the IAS exam IR section.

Dakar Declaration and African Union Road Safety Charter

Twenty-one African countries have adopted the Dakar Declaration, aimed at strengthening data capture, analysis, sharing, and coordination to shape better road safety policies. 

• The Declaration is in line with the Global Plan for the United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety, which seeks to halve road crash deaths by 2030.
• The Dakar Declaration also includes a commitment to ratify the African Union (AU) Charter for Road Safety, which aims to provide a legal and policy framework for road safety on the continent. 
• The Charter seeks to strengthen regional and national road safety policies and actions, enhance coordination, and involve businesses and civil society.

Conference Highlights and Outcomes:

• The Dakar Declaration was adopted in March 2021 at the first African sub-regional conference on implementing the Global Plan for Road Safety, which brought together representatives from 21 African governments, regional bodies, and civil society organizations.
• The conference focused on key issues in implementing the Global Plan for the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021-2030, including lead road safety agencies, legislation and regional policies, and strengthening data systems to improve policies and actions.
• Senegal’s Transport Minister committed to ratifying the AU Road Safety Charter at the conference, and several other countries expressed a willingness to sign up. 
• The charter requires ratification by four more countries to come into force.

Safe Systems Approach to Road Safety

• The Dakar Declaration is in line with the work of the African Road Safety Observatory, which seeks to harmonize road safety-related indicators across the continent. 
• It also aligns with the ‘Safe Systems’ approach to road safety, which recognizes that road transport is a complex system with interconnecting elements that affect each other.
• The Safe Systems approach emphasizes the need for a holistic and systemic approach to road safety, addressing all aspects of the road transport system, including the road, the vehicle, the user, and the surrounding environment. 
• It aims to achieve zero deaths on the road, acknowledging that human error is inevitable and the transport system should be designed to protect people from serious injury or death in the event of a crash.

Conclusion:

• The Dakar Declaration and the commitment to the AU Road Safety Charter by African countries is a significant step in the effort to reduce road crash fatalities and improve road safety policies. 
• By enhancing data systems and adopting a Safe Systems approach to road safety, African countries can work together to achieve the global target of halving road crash deaths by 2030.

Dakar Declaration [UPSC Notes]:- Download PDF Here