This year 2025, from NGOs documenting unsafe streets to advocates challenging governments on speed reduction, helmet safety and accountability, our voices as civil society anchored every conversation and every outcome.
The collective strength of our voices as civil society was on full display in Marrakech at the 4th Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety (Ministerial Conference). The Alliance brought all stakeholders to the same stage—civil society, governments, international organizations, the private sector, and academia—and made accountability unavoidable. Through our parallel session on commitments and accountability, the side event on safe and affordable helmets, release of our helmet testing results, and Mobility Snapshot advocacy, NGOs showed what we do best: reveal the dangerous realities on the ground. Alliance members brought helmets from their streets to the Ministerial Conference; we tested them; and the results spoke for themselves. Through our helmet advocacy work, we revealed that we are letting people down by allowing unsafe helmets into the market. Unsafe products are still reaching people, and evidence must drive action.
The same approach underpins the Mobility Snapshot and our work on 30 km/h. From Cape Town to Chișinău to Dar es Salaam, and across more than 44 countries, NGOs used simple, people-centered evidence to show a global pattern: different places, same problem—our streets are designed without people in mind. Mobility Snapshots captured that magnitude and translated it into change, while our Incubator and Accountability Toolkit supported NGOs in Kenya, Uganda, Chile, Nepal, and beyond to turn advocacy into policy commitments and implementation. These wins are not abstract but tangible; they are footpaths built, speed limits lowered, crossings installed, and lives protected.
This progress came in a challenging year. Funding cuts and shrinking civic space placed real pressure on civil society, even as expectations grew. Yet our network expanded, our members persisted, and our collective voice grew louder. As one member reminded us, “You cannot achieve real impact by working in isolation.” That truth carried us through 2025 and must guide us into 2026.
Looking ahead, the launch of the UN Decade of Sustainable Transport offers new pathways to advance what has always been at our core: road safety. We will remain road safety advocates even as we push into broader spaces where safe mobility must be shaped, financed, and delivered. Sustainable transport cannot exist without safety, and NGOs must be at the table to ensure that promise becomes reality. We will keep advocating, documenting realities, and holding governments to account. That is how we move from commitments to change and that is the work we will continue, together, in 2026.
