On 25 and 26 August, the UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy for Road Safety visited Kenya in order to discuss traffic and transportation issues in Africa and beyond.
On the morning of 26 August, Jean Todt met with the President of the Republic of Kenya, Uhuru Kenyatta, who outlined the road safety situation in Kenya and presented the measures implemented by the National Traffic Safety Authority. President Kenyatta offered to further collaborate with UN Agencies on the ground and to keep building on the momentum, which saw Kenya taking major steps toward the reduction of drinking and driving and the strengthening of law enforcement. 2014 saw a reduction of fatal road crash victims by 9.7 percent in the country, with a total of 311 lives saved.
On 25 August, the Special Envoy met with key UN agency representatives in Nairobi. With Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), he discussed how UNEP could better integrate road safety within its country projects, noting that road crashes require a multifaceted approach to address the developmental and environmental issues streaming from poor infrastructure and congestion.
The Special Envoy also met with Aisa Kirabo Kacyira, Deputy Executive Director of UN Habitat, who detailed the need to include smarter and safer transportation within urban planning for developing countries. Goal 11 of the Sustainable Development Goals to be formally adopted next month underlines the importance of road safety as part of city planning. This will be on the agenda of the Second High Level Ministerial Conference on Road Safety (Brasilia, November 2015) and of the Habitat III Conference (Quito, 2016).
Finally, the Special Envoy met with Sahle Work-Zewde, Director General of the United Nations Office in Nairobi (UNON), to discuss what could be implemented to improve the safety of UN employees when at the wheel and UNON staff members.