Eye Health and Global Road Safety: Building Momentum Toward the 2026 High-Level Meeting 

On 20-21 July 2026, governments will gather at United Nations Headquarters in New York for the High-Level Meeting on Global Road Safety, a key milestone in the Second Decade of Action for Road Safety (2021–2030). The meeting will review progress toward the global target of reducing road traffic deaths and serious injuries by at least 50 percent by 2030 and agree on a new political outcome document. 

IAPB and its members are advocating for the outcome document to explicitly recognise vision impairment as a road safety risk factor and access to eye health services as an essential component of safer transport systems. Road safety is highly vision dependent. Poor vision increases crash risk by nearly 50 percent, yet between 10 and 85 percent of drivers in low- and middle-income countries receive a licence without any vision test. Drivers with cataract are 2.5 times more likely to be involved in at-fault crashes. The Safe System Approach in the Global Plan for the Second Decade of Action recommends minimum vision standards for drivers, and scaling up eye care interventions could prevent more than 211,000 road traffic injuries by 2030 and over 1.2 million annually thereafter.

This work builds on an important advocacy success at the 2022 High-Level Meeting on Global Road Safety. Through coordinated engagement by IAPB members and the United Nations Friends of Vision group, the final 2022 Political Declaration recognised the link between road safety and visual impairment and called on governments to take this connection into account in integrated road safety approaches. The 2026 meeting provides an opportunity to strengthen this recognition and encourage governments to integrate vision screening and access to eye care into national road safety strategies. 

Progress on road safety also contributes to the broader momentum toward the Global Summit For Eye Health in 2026, which will mobilise political commitments and investment to expand access to eye care services worldwide. Recognising vision as a key component of road safety strengthens the case for eye health as a cross-cutting development priority. 

How members can support 

Members can help advance this effort by engaging with government contacts involved in the negotiations and encouraging support for language that recognises vision impairment as a road safety risk and promotes access to eye care within national road safety policies.