On December 22^nd 2015, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted a new Resolution entitled “Towards comprehensive cooperation among all modes of transport for promoting multimodal transit corridors”.  The resolution was initiated by the Government of Turkmenistan and co-sponsored by 85 United Nations (UN) member states. It sets out the guidelines for cooperation for the UN system agencies, including regional organizations and regional and multilateral development banks, to help ensure coherence in policy and technical actions on sustainable transport. In addition, the resolution provides useful guidance to non-UN actors, notably the private sector on viable partnership options to pursue international cooperation on sustainable transport. Together, the guidance offered in the Resolution to both UN and non-UN actors, creates a strong global incentive framework for concrete action on multimodal sustainable transport. 

The resolution specifically welcomes the efforts of several members of the Partnership on Sustainable, Low Carbon Transport (SLoCaT) including the World Bank, the International Transport Forum and the International Union of Railways (UIC),“…within their respective mandates, to develop and operationalise international and regional transport and transit corridors…” . Similarly, the work of the UN Secretary-General’s High Level Advisory Group on Sustainable Transport (HLAG-ST), including the preparation of the Global Transport Outlook Report and the organisation of the First Global Conference on Sustainable Transport at the end of 2016 are also appreciated by the member states.  It also underlines the important of Road Safety and welcomes the appointment of the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Road Safety. 

Transport is an important enabler for the sustainable development, and the five dimensions of sustainable development; efficiency, safety, accessibility, affordability and environmental soundness are addressed in the resolution.  The need for adopting energy efficiency and low carbon technologies and the designing roads for safety of transport users are mentioned in paragraphs 6 and 5 respectively.  In the preamble section; there are references to accessibility to all sectors of society and the enabling role of affordable and environmentally sound transport for sustainable economic growth.

For full-text of the resolution, please click here.