Abuja, Nigeria [24th June, 2025] -- The Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID) has announced a collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) to improve how African newsrooms report on road safety. The partnership will be anchored by the African Road Safety Reporting Forum, a three-day convening to be held in Abuja in September 2026, which will bring together 20 editors, journalists, and media influencers from Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, and South Africa.
The engagement responds to a public health crisis that remains, in many places, poorly understood. Road traffic crashes are now the leading cause of death among children and young people aged 5 to 29 worldwide. The African region carries a disproportionate share of this burden, as while road deaths have fallen globally over the past decade, Africa is the only WHO region where they have continued to rise, increasing by 17 per cent between 2010 and 2021. The continent now accounts for nearly one in five road deaths worldwide, despite being home to only 15 per cent of the global population, and it carries the highest road traffic fatality rate of any region.
Yet much of the media coverage of road traffic crashes does not reflect the scale of this crisis. Stories too often frame crashes as unavoidable accidents rather than as preventable tragedies with systemic causes and solutions, and in many cases they place responsibility on individual road users rather than on unsafe infrastructure, weak governance, and gaps in policy. The forum is designed to help close that gap.
Over three days, participants will work with WHO technical experts and leading African editors to develop industry-standard editorial and reporting guidelines on road safety for the continent. They will also produce a series of road safety stories that put the new guidelines into practice, and will continue to refine the guidelines through an online working group after the forum. Successful applicants will receive practical training on solutions-focused and accountability-driven reporting, alongside full travel, accommodation, and daily stipend support.
Speaking on the partnership, Akintunde Babatunde, Executive Director of CJID, described road safety as one of Africa's most urgent yet underreported public health challenges. "The way societies understand road crashes shapes the policies they demand and the solutions they support. Through this partnership with the World Health Organization, CJID is bringing together journalists, editors, and media influencers from across Africa to strengthen evidence-based reporting, advance accountability, and help build a media ecosystem that contributes to safer roads and saves lives."
Also speaking on the initiative, Ifeanyi Chukwudi, who leads the implementation of the African Road Safety Reporting initiative at CJID, said that journalists shape how the public and policymakers understand the road safety crisis. Through this initiative, he explained, "CJID and the WHO want to give African journalists the evidence, the tools, and the shared standards to report road safety as the systemic and solvable problem it is."
Echoing this, Matthew Taylor, a consulting project manager with the World Health Organization noted that Africa is now the only region where road deaths are still rising, and that the way these crashes are understood by the public is part of the challenge. The WHO, he added, "is pleased to support CJID and African newsrooms in building coverage that is accurate, accountability-driven, and focused on the solutions that save lives."
Applications for the forum are open to editors, journalists, and media influencers with a demonstrated interest in public health or road safety reporting. Priority will be given to applicants based in Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, Ethiopia, and South Africa, though strong applicants from other African countries may also be considered.
The application deadline is 10 July 2026, and all interested applicants can apply here.
About CJID
The Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID) is a leading African media development and innovation organization dedicated to advancing democracy, accountability, and information integrity across the continent. Through research, journalism, technology, and policy engagement, CJID strengthens independent media, promotes civic participation, and supports evidence-based public discourse across Africa.
CJID is recognized for its work in investigative journalism, fact-checking and verification, media innovation, open data, elections, freedom of expression, journalist safety, and digital governance. Its Health Reporting Project supports journalists and newsrooms in producing deeper, more accurate, and more impactful reporting on public health and development challenges.
