2. The Chair of the World Forum welcomed the representatives to the World Forum and introduced the opening speakers, Mr. Yuwei Li, the new Director of the ECE Sustainable Transport Division, and H.E. Mr. German Cardona, Minister of Transport and Infrastructure of Colombia.
3. Mr. Li welcomed participants to the World Forum. He underlined the magnitude of the impact that the work of the World Forum has in the implementation of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, taking into account that road vehicles are a critical component of transport systems, affecting all aspects of the economy, especially trade, and the personal mobility of people in their daily lives.
4. Mr. Li reminded the World Forum of the importance of taking actions to improve road safety and address the epidemic-like consequences of road traffic crashes, which result in 1.25 million people killed and around 50 million people injured annually. He emphasized the importance of achieving progress in vehicle safety as one of the five pillars of the United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety, 2011-2020. The Director also underlined that road safety was part of the Sustainable Development Goals in target 3.6 and Goal 11, which includes road safety considerations, and praised the World Forum’s contribution to the sustainable development agenda in this respect. He further stressed the role of the World Forum in responding to the challenges in sustainable development resulting from rapid urbanisation, pollutant emissions and their climate change impacts, and reflected on the work of WP.29 to improve the environmental performance of vehicles.
5. The Director highlighted the potential of automated vehicles to improve road safety, to improve efficiency by reducing energy consumption and to reduce Green House Gas (GHG) emissions, and expressed his strong support to the World Forum in its work to establish a comprehensive international regulatory framework for these revolutionary technological advances in the road vehicles sector. He stressed that ECE is proud to host the World Forum as very important link in the sustainable development agenda, which can contribute to saving millions of lives and help to improve living conditions by improving the environmental impact of transport in curbing GHG and pollutant emissions.
6. Mr. Li reminded the World Forum that the ministerial resolution adopted at the 2017 Inland Transport Committee (ITC) identified ECE as the global centre of inland transport agreements and conventions, and that delegations at the 2018 ITC session further expressed a strong desire to open ITC, its subsidiary Working Parties and the legal instruments under its purview to global membership. Recognizing the already global character of the World Forum, the Director expressed that ITC and the ECE secretariat would fully support WP.29 by promoting accession to its three vehicle agreements worldwide and by providing assistance to countries in implementing the agreements and their annexed regulations.
7. The Chair of the World Forum thanked the Director for his address and comments. He summarized the main activities of WP.29, especially the scope of work to improve vehicle safety and environmental performance, and the activities in vehicle automation, which require the dedicated attention of the World Forum. The Chair reiterated the position of the Director that the World Forum strives to expand its global membership and global application of the three vehicle agreements under the purview of the World Forum.
8. The Minister of Transport and Infrastructure of Colombia, H.E. Mr. German Cardona, thanked the secretariat and all the delegations for his invitation to WP.29. He informed WP.29 about the activities of the Government of Colombia on road safety. He reminded WP.29 about the historical peace agreement that had ended an internal conflict. The death toll of the conflict, that lasted for decades, had been reduced significantly. However, despite the efforts made by the country in joining the United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety, 2011-2020, Colombia still had huge challenges in terms of so-called pacification of the roads to avoid the tragedy of thousands of families. Colombia is a country of fifty million inhabitants that had lost more than 40,000 lives on the road since 2011 with a recorded 250,000 injured road users. These represented truncated dreams especially among young people, healthy lives lost, and an unacceptable and preventable tragedy. Thus, the superior and fundamental political and social commitment of the Government of Colombia guarantees the road safety of Colombians — guarantees the right to live, and the right to safe mobility without compromising physical integrity. This is the reason for his presence today at the United Nations in Geneva and marks the start of an efficient system of adequate regulations that would ensure a safe system. In his professional experience, he was the Minister of Transport and Infrastructure and, in recent months, was backup to the President Juan Manuel Santos. In 2011, Congress had established the National Agency on Road Safety which started work in 2016, and constitutes his personal passion to safety. Colombia has planned work on road safety for 2011 to 2021, and work on harmonizing vehicle regulations for vehicles and motorcycles. However, Colombia has recognized that vehicles sold in the country do not correspond to the minimum safety standards, and that manufacturers sold vehicle versions with a lower level of safety as indicated by the Latin NCAP programme for the region. For this reason, Colombia recognized the importance of developing a regulation and type approval system, and of participating in the activities of the World Forum. It is a responsibility of Latin America and of the region as a whole to support and require a transformation of the industry. In the past weeks, the city of Medellin, Colombia had had the opportunity to host the first international forum of road safety, to which important national and international delegates and a huge public attended that surpassed expectations. Most were young and involved in road safety as a theme. In this framework, he addressed a special thanks to Messrs. Edoardo Gianotti and Jean Todt who proved to be outstanding allies for improving road safety in Colombia. The protection and defence of life had attained new heights for road safety. He further reiterated the efforts on road pacification. Improving road safety had become state policy and without doubt, the Presidents of our country will continue work to improve road safety to elevate peace.
9. The representative of OICA ensured the commitment of his association and of the global industry to improve road safety and welcomed the participation of the government of Colombia. He underlined that WP.29 was the right forum to develop automotive regulations and take into account technical progress. He stated that the crucial point was the harmonization of vehicle regulation. He said that vehicles may indeed meet different levels of standards depending on the market, and that therefore, OICA thought it would be very important for all markets to establish the so-called “level playing field” by putting in place the necessary harmonized legislation in the different countries so that all manufacturers and competitors are on an equal footing. He concluded that it was an important point to base national legislation on Regulations developed in the framework of the activities of the 1998 and 1958 Agreements administered by WP.29.
10. H.E. Mr. Cardona confirmed that the issue of vehicles with lower safety standards would be debated in the Congress of Colombia. As demonstrated above, LatinNCAP had made an excellent presentation during the international congress of Medellin on how Colombia is a receptor of low quality vehicles. The responsibility of the Government was explicit to work and to improve vehicle safety through the activities of the recently established road safety agency.
11. The representative of LatinNCAP and GlobalNCAP reiterated his commitment to support the efforts of the Colombian Government.
12. The representative of IMMA recognized that Colombia was a country where 28 per cent of Colombian families owned motorcycles, and that two-wheelers were an important means of mobility as one of seven Colombians use motorcycles as a regular form of transportation. He offered the cooperation of his association to assist Colombia with regards to the motorcycle relevant UN Regulations and the UN GTRs developed by the World Forum.