WHO and editors launch initiative to reduce African road deaths
Summary and headline written by AI from the source article. How we work
The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID) began a partnership to improve road safety reporting across Africa, responding to nearly 250,000 road deaths each year on the continent.
They held a three-day forum in Abuja, Nigeria, gathering editors, journalists, and road safety experts from Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and Uganda to plan new media guidelines.
The organisations aim to shift media coverage from individual crashes to systemic issues like infrastructure and enforcement, promoting evidence-based reporting and public demand for safer roads. WHO noted that Africa experiences about one-fifth of global road traffic fatalities despite only owning three per cent of the world’s vehicles, and deaths are increasing while global numbers decline. Dr. Pavel Ursu of WHO explained the initiative seeks to connect scientific evidence with media narratives, correcting misperceptions and encouraging accountability.
The forthcoming guidelines will utilize a “Safe Systems approach,” which prioritises designing transport systems that protect people from errors, rather than blaming road users. CJID’s Dapo Olorunyomi stated that editorial decisions can frame road crashes as either isolated incidents or failures of public policy. The guidelines are scheduled to be finished by mid-2027 and build upon WHO’s existing road safety journalism program, which has trained over 5,000 reporters worldwide.
