The World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID) have begun developing Africa’s first road safety media guidelines, aimed at improving how newsrooms across the continent report road crashes and strengthening accountability for preventable deaths.
The process began on Tuesday at the inaugural African Media Forum on Road Safety in Abuja, bringing together 20 editors, journalists and media professionals from Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda, alongside road safety experts.
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The guidelines, expected to be completed by mid-2027, will provide an evidence-based framework for reporting road safety beyond casualty figures and the immediate circumstances of crashes.
Organisers said the initiative would encourage journalists to examine wider factors behind road deaths, including road design and infrastructure, vehicle safety, speed management, traffic laws and enforcement, emergency response and post-crash care.
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Africa’s road safety burden
Speaking at the opening of the three-day forum, WHO Country Representative in Nigeria, Pavel Ursu, described road traffic injuries as a major public health and development challenge requiring urgent and coordinated action.
Mr Ursu said nearly 250,000 people die on roads in the WHO African Region each year, equivalent to about one death every two minutes.
He said the region also accounts for about one-fifth of global road fatalities despite having only three per cent of the world’s registered vehicles.
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According to WHO figures, Nigeria has the highest number of road traffic deaths in the region, with more than 36,000 deaths annually.
Mr Ursu said the way journalists frame road crashes can influence public understanding, accountability and demand for interventions.
“This is about closing the gap between science and story. It’s about correcting misperceptions on an urgent and preventable health crisis and driving accountability for action that saves lives,” he said.
He said media leaders could help change the conversation around road safety and increase demand for policies proven to prevent deaths and serious injuries.
Changing how crashes are reported
Akintunde Babatunde, Executive Director of CJID, said editorial choices can determine whether road crashes are presented merely as personal tragedies or examined as wider public policy failures.
“Through this forum, CJID and the WHO will work with editors, journalists, and influencers across Africa to build a shared, evidence-based standard for covering road safety, so that reporting starts holding power to account and becomes part of the solution, not just a record of the loss,” Mr Babatunde said.
Dapo Olorunyomi, Publisher of PREMIUM TIMES and Chief Executive Officer of CJID, said the forum is seeking to change a common pattern in African newsrooms where road crashes are reported largely as isolated events, often ending with the number of casualties and an account from law enforcement agencies.
Mr Olorunyomi said journalists need to interrogate what lies behind a crash rather than simply recording what happened.
He pointed to questions about the condition and design of roads, lighting, appropriate speed, vehicle condition, enforcement of existing laws and the response of emergency services.
He also questioned the common explanation that a driver simply “lost control”, asking whether such descriptions adequately explain why crashes occur.
Mr Olorunyomi said evidence informing the project suggests this is a wider problem across Africa, with reporting paying less attention to infrastructure, regulation, enforcement and other underlying factors.
Journalists to develop guidelines
Mr Olorunyomi said the guidelines would not simply be written by WHO and CJID and handed to African newsrooms.
Instead, editors and journalists who make daily editorial decisions will participate in developing the framework.
“We don’t want to sit somewhere in Abuja with WHO and CJID and write a document telling African journalists how to report road safety. The editors and journalists who actually make these decisions every day need to shape it,” he said.
He said the process will continue after the three-day forum with a core group of editors, further review and eventual newsroom adoption.
He added that journalists will also receive support and mentorship to produce stories using the framework, providing an opportunity to assess what works and what requires improvement.
Mr Ursu said the initiative represents the beginning of a framework developed by African media professionals for their colleagues.
“This forum marks the beginning of the development of Africa’s first road safety media guidelines, created by editors, journalists, and content creators for their peers,” he said.
“We hope these guidelines will become a trusted standard for newsrooms across the continent, strengthening public demand, accountability, and action to save lives.”
The forum builds on WHO’s wider road safety journalism initiative, supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies. More than 5,000 journalists have been trained in countries with high numbers of road fatalities, with participating journalists from Ghana, Nigeria and India producing award-winning reports.
Enforcement alone cannot solve the problem
The Corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Shehu Mohammed, said addressing road deaths requires more than enforcement by road safety authorities.
Mr Mohammed, represented by Deputy Corps Marshal Training Department, Abiodun Akinlade, said stronger partnerships are needed among the media, government agencies, transport operators, civil society, development partners and the public.
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“At the Federal Road Safety Corps, we recognise that enforcement alone cannot solve the road-safety challenge,” he said.
He urged the media to look beyond individual crashes and pay greater attention to their causes, prevention and the responsibilities of institutions and other stakeholders.
“I therefore urge this Forum to move beyond reporting crashes to telling the larger road-safety story: why crashes occur, how they can be prevented, and what every stakeholder can do to save lives,” he said.
The FRSC chief said sustained and responsible reporting could help expose dangerous practices, promote safer behaviour and demand accountability from relevant stakeholders.
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