Minister Edghill meets with Mr Jean Todt, UN Secretary General Special Envoy on Road Safety

As part of his engagements in Geneva, Minister Edghill also met with Mr. Jean Todt, UN Secretary General Special Envoy on Road Safety.

During the lively dialogue, the minister updated Mr. Todt on the general infrastructure development in Guyana, particularly efforts by the government to improve road safety in Guyana for all road users, including motorists, pedestrians and cyclists. 

Minister Edghill also spoke of  some challenges and expressed his desire to learn from the experiences of the UN, that could help Guyana update its road safety strategy moving forward.

Mr. Todt noted the urgent need for all countries to work on trying to reduce deaths and injuries on the roadway, and provided a menu of five measures that could help Guyana reduce road crashes and casualties by 50 per cent in one year.

Mr Todt also introduced, what he referred to as a “road mask”, a motor cycle helmet that was specially designed for climatic conditions in Guyana.  The helmet, he described, is comfortable, provides ventilation for the user and cost less than 20 USD.

He explained that the UN Road Safety Fund can support an initiative to distribute some helmets, but that initiative would have to be supplemented in the long term by government and private sector initiatives.

The meeting closed with a second invitation by the Special Envoy for Minister Edghill to attend the UN high level Road Safety meeting in New York at the end of June, early July 2022.