Road safety: a priority issue for the United Nations

This issue of the Bulletin deals with road safety, which has become an urgent worldwide problem. Given the fact that road accidents are increasing, that they affect the planet's most vulnerable population (namely the lowest income groups in developing countries) and that this is becoming a genuine public health crisis, the United Nations has decided that it is urgent to address the matter. The World Health Organization (WHO) has therefore dedicated the World Health Day 2004 to road safety.Given the urgent need for action, the Chiefs of Transport of the five Regional Economic Commissions of the United Nations held a meeting in Geneva (September 2004), where they agreed to reinforce the studies and projects carried out in this area.Below is a summary of various information sources and initiatives adopted to assess and tackle this modern epidemic and offers a pessimistic outlook for 2020, when road traffic crashes will constitute the third cause of death unless serious action is taken from today.

Evaluation report of the training workshop on the use of the module to analyse growth of international commerce (Magic Plus) and the competitive analysis of nations (TRADECAN 2009) software

The aim of the workshop was to provide a functional overview of the software package, to enable participants to use the software in order to inform more evidence-based trade strategies, and build capacity for researchers and trade negotiators to provide more rigorous, analytical policy research to inform future trade negotiations. Participants came from the ministries of trade of the following CDCC member countries: Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago. Representatives of the following regional institutions were represented: the Caribbean Community/Caribbean Regional Negotiating Mechanism (CARICOM/CRNM); the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS); the University of Guyana, University of Suriname and the University of the West Indies (UWI). It was hoped the workshop would be a stepping stone towards more advanced trade analysis training. The list of participants appears as Annex I.

Summary of resolutions recently adopted by CDCC and resolutions of ECLAC and other organs of the United Nations which might be of special interest to member countries of ECLAC/CDCC

This paper brings to the attention of member countries of the Caribbean Development and Cooperation Committee (CDCC) resolutions adopted by past sessions of the Committee, since 2000, and the process of their implementation. Resolutions 55 to 66 for the period 2000- 2006 have been extracted from the reports of the eighteenth to twenty first sessions of the CDCC Also included for the information of member countries are selected resolutions recently adopted by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and other organs of the United Nations. These resolutions greatly influence the preparation of the programme of work and are expected guide the day-to-day functioning of the secretariat. It is a great source of information for delegations, given the perceived special relevance of the resolutions to the membership of the CDCC. The resolutions listed in this document are pertinent to all subprogrammes of ECLAC and indeed the CDCC subprogramme 12 of ECLAC. However, the content of these resolutions either marked no real advance on the outcomes of the corresponding conferences that were held within recent times or were cast in a globally relevant context that did not address specific concerns of Caribbean countries to any significant extent.