Off the wire
• Belarusian president to visit China on May 13-16  • 1st LD: Spain suffering cyber attack on "massive scale":CNI  • 2nd LD Writethru: Britain's NHS hit by widespread cyber attack  • Spanish stock market rises 0.33 pct, closes at 10,897 points  • Kenya rugby 15s team off to S.Africa for the international training camp  • World elite pole vaulters ready to shine in Shanghai  • Nigeria mulls "cultural diplomacy" with S. Africa over xenophobic attacks  • Roundup: Tech-empowered youth will drive ASEAN dream of connectivity, inclusion: experts  • Spain suffering cyber attack on "massive scale":CNI  • 2nd LD Writethru-Roundup: DR Congo confirms Ebola epidemic in northern region  
You are here: 　 Home

UN calls for action to reduce road traffic accidents in Ghana

Xinhua, May 12, 2017 Adjust font size:

The United Nations on Friday called for urgent actions on speed management in Ghana, as it climaxed the UN Global Road Safety week.

The action will aim at reducing road accidents, deaths and injuries by 50 percent by 2020, the target established in the Global Goals for Sustainable Development for the next 15 years (2030).

The UN global road safety week focuses on speed management and what can be done by all stakeholders to address that key risk factor of road accidents, deaths and injuries.

More than 1.25 million people die each year on the world's roads, making road traffic injuries one of the leading causes of death globally.

According to the National Road Safety Commission, speeding contributes to 60 percent of road accidents in Ghana.

Already, between January and April this year, the commission recorded over 4,000 accidents, involving more than 6,000 vehicles that resulted in over 700 deaths due to speeding. Almost 4,000 people have been injured.

The UN Resident Coordinator to Ghana, Christine Evans-Klock, called for stakeholders' action to reduce speeding on the roads to save lives and also to achieve the SDG target of halving the number of global deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents by 2020.

"UN Member-States have agreed on this ambitious target to save lives on our roads...and it is our joint responsibility to make sure this goal becomes a reality in Ghana," she told the media. Endit