KINGSTON - Hon. Annette Ferguson, Minister within the Ministry of Public Infrastructure, is the Government’s representative at a global high-level conference on Road Safety hosted by the Government of Brazil.
The conference is supported by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and will be held in Brasilia from November 18 and 19, 2015.
Fifteen hundred ((1500) delegates, among them, ministers of health, transport and interior from many countries, senior officials from United Nations agencies, representatives of civil society and business leaders will be in attendance.
“It will be a milestone for road safety because for only the second time in history, government ministers and their partners in key decision-making roles from nearly every country of the world will convene to address road safety,” Hon. Ferguson stated, prior to her departure.
The Conference, she added, will seek to share knowledge and spur action on what works to prevent these tragedies and improve safety on the roads for all who use them.
Accompanying Hon. Ferguson on the trip is Trevor Thomas, Permanent Secretary, Public Health; Dion Moore, Superintendent of Police Traffic Department; Kester Hinds, Senior Project Engineer- Maintenance/Traffic/Safety and Sheleza Reid, Project Engineer MPI.
Delegates over the next two days will review the progress in the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020, define next steps at global and national level to achieve the goal of the Decade of Action to save 5 million lives; and look beyond 2020 to the urgent actions needed to implement the development goals related to road safety.
High on the agenda include key achievements in the Decade of Action, next steps in achieving the goal of the Decade of Action, road safety towards 2030, global targets and indicators for road safety, pillars of the Global Plan for the Decade of Action and emerging issues in road safety.
The Conference was decided at an April 2014 United Nations General Assembly resolution A/RES/68/269 meeting on improving global road safety.
Globally, road traffic injuries take the lives of roughly 1.24 million people every year, and injure as many as 50 million more.
