10 years of making road transport safer, greener and more sustainable for future generations

“Ten years ago my main focus was to organise the FIA Foundation Road Safety Scholarship Programme. I had many friends in Eastern Europe and countries that were once part of the Soviet Union – talented young leaders I had worked with as one-time Director of the John Smith Memorial Trust, a good governance leadership course attracting the best and brightest young professionals from the region. These included road safety leaders supported by the FIA Foundation: people like Poghos Shahinyan from Armenia and Gela Kvashilava from Georgia, who worked tirelessly but found it an uphill struggle to get their governments to act to reduce high road casualties.

EASST grew from these talented young leaders. They asked us to build a regional network to support their efforts – allowing an exchange of international expertise and building a forum for sharing best practice. They asked, and the FIA Foundation listened. With the backing of the Foundation, EASST was established in June 2009 and successfully registered as a UK charity in January 2010. Starting from just five countries, our network has expanded to include 14 countries, growing in its regional influence and reach. The link with the FIA and their work to support road safety remains strong: five of our partner organisations are FIA-affiliated clubs and others have strong working links with local clubs in their countries.

Looking back at the past ten years, I can speak for all EASST’s Trustees and staff in expressing our pride in what our partners have achieved. Our mission – to make road travel safer, greener and more sustainable for future generations – faces major challenges as described in our 10 years of saving lives: Road safety capacity building and development impact report. But we have also seen some tremendous successes in each of our partner countries. Our objective of creating an active, regional network that feeds progress in road safety and gives strength to all its members has certainly been realised.

We would not have achieved these successes without the support of our sponsors, in particular the FIA Foundation. We are proud to be one of their core partners, collaborating on the Child Health Initiative and many other campaigns. We are also hugely grateful to the Alexander Mosley Charitable Trust for their sponsorship of our training and capacity building. We have been privileged to have worked closely with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Asian Development Bank (ADB) and other International Financial Institutions in carrying out national and regional projects with the input of our local partners. We have strong collaborations with the International Road Transport Union (IRU) and IRU Academy, Kier Group plc, FedEx, the Safer Roads Foundation and Shell Group, along with many other local project partners and sponsors. We have also had strong support for our work from the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office, World Health Organisation, UNECE, International Transport Forum (ITF) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). EASST would like to thank all of them (and many others not listed here) for their invaluable assistance and for sharing our goals.”

EMMA MACLENNAN
FOUNDER & DIRECTOR OF EASST