Addis Ababa, — The Fourth Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety opened in Marrakech, Morocco today.

Hosted by the Government of Morocco and the World Health Organization, the conference will be held from 18-20 February 2025 with the theme of "Commit to Life."

The summit brought leaders and experts together to accelerate action towards the Sustainable Development Goals' target of halving global road deaths by 2030.

Halfway through 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 are expected to assess progress, identify priorities, share knowledge, forge alliances, and advance commitments to prevent deaths and injuries on the world's roads.

Participants include ministers, heads of national road safety agencies, officials from all levels, parliamentarians, experts from the United Nations, civil society, business, academia and a range of related sectors.

Focus areas include road safety governance, emerging trends in mobility, financing, the private sector, road traffic injury data, connections with other related Sustainable Development Goals and as the first Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety ever to be held on the African continent, a focus on Africa.

Road safety is an urgent and preventable global health crisis. Road crashes claim the lives of nearly 1.2 million people each year - around 3200 each day - and are the leading cause of death among children and young adults aged 5-29.

Yet global road deaths are falling, slightly. More than half of all UN Member States report declining deaths in recent years, and 10 countries halved deaths in 10 years, showing that a 50 percent reduction is possible.

At the Ministerial Conference, participants will learn from, and build on, these successes to spur more improvements.