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Good Health and Well-Being
United Nations Economic Commission for Europe
The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) is one of the 5 United Nations regional commissions administered by the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). It was established in 1947 with the mandate to help rebuild post-war Europe develop economic activity and strengthen economic relations among European countries and between Europe and the rest of the world. During the Cold War UNECE served as a unique forum for economic dialogue and cooperation between East and West. Despite the complexity of this period significant achievements were made with consensus reached on numerous harmonization and standardization agreements.
Road safety in the ECE region
According to the UNECE data for the year 2021 significant disparities exist in road traffic accident fatality and injury rates among UNECE member States as illustrated in figures I and II respectively. These figures underscore the variations in road safety metrics across the region.
Statistics of Road Traffic Accidents in Europe and North America 2023
This publication (volume LVII) presents annual statistics on road traffic accidents and provides comparable data on causes types and results of accidents in Europe Canada and the United States. Data are organized by nature of accident and surroundings; accidents while under the influence of alcohol; and the number of persons killed or injured by category or road user and age group. As background data figures on the number of road vehicles in use and vehicle-kilometers run by road vehicles are also provided along with estimates of population and distribution by age group. This annual publication contains important statistical information for those involved in transportation planning and road safety issues.
Introduction
Every year approximately 90000 people are killed in road traffic accidents in the ECE region. Target 3.6 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development had the aim of halving the overall number of road deaths by 2020 compared to 2010. In September 2020 the United Nations General Assembly (resolution A/RES/74/299) initiated a second Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021-2030 with the explicit target to reduce road deaths and injuries by at least fifty per cent during this period.
Transport in UNECE
Today UNECE services 60 United Nations inland transport legal instruments. Several of the legal instruments are global either by design or because their success has caused them to grow beyond the ECE region. In addition to negotiating the amendments to existing legal instruments UNECE has been active in facilitating new legal instruments. Its normative activities are enhanced with developing methodologies guidelines and definitions on subjects such as transport planning data collection and the collection of transport statistics. UNECE’s work on transport is governed by the Inland Transport Committee (ITC) and its 21 Working Parties which are in turn supported by more than 40 formal and informal expert groups and in cooperation with 9 treaty bodies (Administrative Committees). Annual sessions of ITC are the key moments of this comprehensive intergovernmental work when the results from all subsidiary bodies as well as the UNECE Sustainable Transport Division are presented to ITC members and contracting parties.
Aid Under Pressure: 3 Accelerating Shifts in Official Development Assistance
State of World Population 2024
Interwoven Lives, Threads of Hope - Ending Inequalities in Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights
This year's report takes the 30th anniversary of the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development as an opportunity to reflect on how far we have come in achieving sexual and reproductive health and rights for all. While the report celebrates the significant gains made it also considers who has been left out of that progress arguing that a more equitable future for all requires a renewed commitment to empowering those furthest behind.
Women are the thread
In an ideal world the advancement of women’s reproductive rights and the promotion of equitable access to sexual and reproductive health and rights would be inherently motivated by the principles of human rights and social justice. But real-world sociopolitical contexts often demand quantifiable arguments on the short-term and long-term returns on investments in such programmes. Indeed this was understood to be the case in 1994. Though the ICPD Programme of Action represented a monumental pivot away from population control policies and towards prioritizing the rights of all individuals the economic rationale nevertheless remained critical for justifying investments in these rights.
Counting every stitch
The 1994 ICPD and its resulting Programme of Action not only represented a moment of remarkable consensus around the value of universal sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights (Brown and others 2019; Sen and others 2019; Corrêa and others 2015) it also represented a powerful call for better and more transparent data – a contribution to global standards that has seldom been recognized. In fact an entire chapter of the Programme of Action Chapter XII (UNFPA 1994) is devoted to the need for “valid reliable timely culturally relevant internationally comparable data” including “gender and ethnicity-specific information”. It also called for research into the views of less-empowered groups of people and those in different cultural settings.
A work in progress
A safe birth. A choice of contraceptives. Protection from gender-based violence. More people than ever before have realized these essential life-sustaining rights. But the number of people denied these rights has not yet reached zero – as it can and as it must.
Technical notes
The statistical tables in State of World Population 2024 include indicators that track progress towards the goals of the Framework of Actions for the follow-up to the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the areas of maternal health access to education and reproductive and sexual health. In addition these tables include a variety of demographic indicators. The statistical tables support UNFPA’s focus on progress and results towards delivering a world where every pregnancy is wanted every birth is safe and every young person's potential is fulfilled.
Unravelling inequality
The ICPD Programme of Action emerged in the aftermath of the Cold War a time of upheaval and uncertainty. That year 1994 saw both the end of apartheid in South Africa which held its first multiracial democratic election in April and the eruption of genocide in Rwanda that same month. Sweden legalized civil unions between same-sex partners – making it the third country ever to do so – as the global rate of new HIV infections was reaching its highest-ever peak (UNAIDS n.d.). The promise of collective action and the perils of failing to take such action could not have been more prominent in the minds of ICPD attendees in Cairo.
Foreword
Thirty years ago governments around the world agreed that reproductive health and rights are foundation stones of global development – a groundbreaking consensus that paved the way for decades of progress. Since then the global rate of unintended pregnancies has fallen by nearly 20 per cent globally. The number of women using modern contraceptive methods has doubled. Today at least 162 countries have adopted laws against domestic violence and maternal deaths have decreased by 34 per cent since 2000.
Weaving a collective future
“If you have come here to help me you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine then let us work together.” These were the words of Lilla Watson an indigenous activist from Australia at the 1985 United Nations Decade for Women Conference in Nairobi.