Africa at a crossroads: balancing growth with sustainable mobility

Africa launches an important project to combat the high rate of road accidents and air pollution caused by vehicular traffic. Promoted by UNEP, UN-Habitat and WHO, the plan encourages walking and cycling, with the aim of creating safer, healthier and more sustainable cities

Africa is at a crossroads. On one hand, rapid urbanization and economic growth have led to an unbridled upsurge in motorized vehicles that seriously affects public health and environmental conditions. On the other hand is the imperative related to sustainable and equitable mobility on a continent where millions of people have to walk and cycle to get to work every day.

The harsh reality: road safety in numbers

The statistics are shocking: with only 3% of the global vehicle fleet, Africa accounts for 19% of global road fatalities, while one-third involve pedestrians. This alarming data underlines how precarious the travelling public is in a region that more often than not lacks both pedestrian and cyclists’ infrastructure.

For example, 74% of African roads do not have a sidewalk, and 92% have no pedestrian crossing. Over a billion people walk or cycle almost an hour daily, with very high risks. As Saul Billingsley, Executive Director of the FIA Foundation pointed out, “Millions of people in Africa walk and cycle every day, but often the roads lack basic safety features such as sidewalks and pedestrian crossings.”

The implications of Africa’s mobility challenges clearly do not stop at road safety. Air pollution from traffic is an emerging public health menace. In 2019 alone, it accounted for the deaths of over 920,000 people on the continent, nearly half from respiratory conditions. It hits particularly hard at the poorest, who often live in areas where there is much congestion and few green spaces.

A vision for safer, healthier cities

Launched recently at the World Urban Forum in Cairo, with the support of UNEP, UN-Habitat and the WHO, the Pan-African Action Plan for Active Mobility will advance walking, cycling and other modes of non-motorized transportation toward safer, healthier and more sustainable cities.

This action plan marks a critical milestone in the journey toward healthier and safer cities,” said Li Ailan, Assistant Director-General at WHO for Healthier Populations. “By promoting active mobility, we do not only fight climate change but also fight one of the deadliest public health pandemics“.

Building a better tomorrow through interconnected ways

The initiative brings on board collaboration between governments, institutions, and the public for a more prosperous Africa. It calls for mobility to be a right for all, not a privilege of the selected few. As Michal Mlynár, the Deputy Executive Director at UN-Habitat said, “A unified approach-not just among the UN agencies, but also at the regional, national, and local levels-will guarantee that walking and cycling feature within the bigger sustainability efforts.”

PAAPAM focuses on three key areas of interest, namely, safe and accessible space, supportive environment for walking and cycling, and policy and investment processes that integrate Active Mobility. It has set ambitious goals on safety, accessibility and comfort, investment accompanied by specific indicators to monitor the progress.

From plan to action

But the real test is in implementation. To that effect, PAAPAM calls for broad-based stakeholder engagement across board, down from national and local governments to communities, civil society, and academia. Regional task forces, working groups, and an African network for walking and cycling together work toward creating a movement that will engulf the entire continent with active mobility.

Starting in 2025, UNEP, UN-Habitat, and WHO will implement this framework in at least 10 African countries, with capacity-building programs already lined up for Ghana, Malawi, Cameroon, Morocco, and Kenya. In the final analysis, the success of PAAPAM will depend on nothing less than the engaging and mobilizing of the whole of African society to make active mobility no longer just a necessity but a conscious, shared choice.