Ep 18: Taking action on road safety - UNRSF

Road safety is crucial to postal organisations. With millions of postal workers using the roads daily, raising awareness of road traffic rules and ensuring the safety of equipment and infrastructure is vital for Posts if they are to operate smoothly and efficiently. However, the quality of broader road traffic infrastructure and policies is highly dependent on the level of socioeconomic development and varies drastically across regions. While 1.3 million people perish on the roads every year, the majority of them being youth, road safety remains a largely underinvested area in more and less developed communities alike. Established in 2018, the United Nations Road Safety Fund (UNRSF) helps bridge these gaps in road safety finance by working with different actors to mobilise the resources needed to support high-impact projects. In this episode of Voice Mail, Nneka Henry, Head of the Fund’s Secretariat, explains why investing in road safety is crucial, what the main challenges of securing road safety finance are, why partnerships are key to make a difference, and where Posts can step in to help meet the ambitious Vision Zero to end traffic-related fatalities. Finally, in the run-up to the International Day of Education on January 24, we talk about the importance of protecting the most vulnerable road users, children.