KINGSTON, Jamaica — Prime Minister Andrew Holness has issued a strong directive for Jamaica’s first multi-stakeholder National Road Safety Planning Meeting to accelerate efforts aimed at reducing road fatalities and ensuring the country meets its commitment to halve road deaths by 2030.

The meeting, held at the Jamaica National Building on Oxford Road in St Andrew, brought together representatives from the National Road Safety Council (NRSC), government ministries, the private sector and academia to develop a coordinated strategy to address the country’s road safety challenges.

Jamaica recorded 433 road fatalities in 2020, prompting the establishment of a national target to reduce deaths by 50 per cent by 2030.

Representing Holness, State Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister Senator Abka Fitz-Henley said Holness, who chairs the National Road Safety Council, remains concerned that current progress is insufficient and that greater urgency is required.

“In 2024, fatalities fell by 14 per cent, to well under 400. But in 2025, the numbers increased again. To reach our 2030 target, we now need a decrease of at least 10 per cent every year for five straight years. The pace achieved so far is not enough and that gap is why this meeting has been called,” he told the meeting.

The state minister said the Government’s approach is being guided by recommendations from a recent PAHO-commissioned Safety Management Capacity Assessment, which identified the need for stronger governance, improved coordination, integrated planning, sustainable financing and greater accountability.

“That is why we are pleased to convene Jamaica’s first National Safety Planning Meeting. This will become a consistent planning cycle, to be convened twice each year by the NRSC,” Fitz-Henley said.

Fitz-Henley stressed that the objective of the meeting is not simply to produce plans and reports, but to create measurable actions that produce positive outcomes and save Jamaican lives.

He noted that discussions at the planning meeting will become technical, involving matrices, indicators, budget lines and Public Sector Investment Programme (PSIP) forms.

“That precision is necessary. But do not lose sight of why it matters. Every budget line can represent an area for action, whether it is a junction, a school crossing or a stretch of highway where, if we get this right, a life will be saved. This process will be judged not simply by the documents produced, but by whether fewer Jamaican families are receiving devastating news one year and two years from now,” Fitz-Henley said on behalf of the prime minister.