Eastern Alliance for Safe and Sustainable Transport

The formula for success in tackling road safety

EASST is an independent UK-registered charity working in Eastern Europe and South Caucasus to facilitate cross-border projects on sustainable transport and road safety. We work through local partner organisations to make their efforts more effective by sharing know-how and resources. We cooperate in regional and cross-border projects, leveraging support and expertise from around the world to save lives and prevent injuries on the roads.

Our Patron is the Rt Hon Lord Robertson of Port Ellen KT, GCMG, PC, Chairman of the Commission for Global Road Safety and our Chairman is Lord Dubs of Battersea , Chair of the APPGs on EU Enlargement and Moldova.

Safe roads have a vital role to play in economic development, allowing the safe movement of people and vehicles required for investment, trade and tourism. However in countries of concern to EASST, treating road casualties is imposing an increasingly unbearable burden on health and social services, while unsafe road transport is inhibiting both economic and social development.

Much of the money being invested by the donor community in Eastern Europe and Central Asia is intended for road rehabilitation. Unfortunately, an emphasis on quick results in the past has meant that some roads built with donor money have not been safe roads. Increased motorisation, increased speed and poor road design have, in some cases, produced new roads which are far more lethal than the old roads they replaced. EASST is working to ensure a proportion of the finance planned for road improvements is used to promote safe road design and safe road use.

EASST concentrates its efforts in eastern European countries, particularly in the South Caucasus and countries in the EU neighbourhood region (including the Eastern Partnership and Black Sea Synergy countries). At the moment we are actively involved in developing a number of cross-border projects in the countries of the region.

EASST is a UK-registered charity with a small Board of Trustees and an Advisory Board of partner organisations all active in promoting road safety. We remain bound by the laws of the UK, including the Charities Act 1993 (as amended by the Charities Act 2006) and Bribery Act 2010. We take a zero tolerance approach to bribery and this is set out in our Anti-bribery and Corruption Policy adopted by the Board of Trustees in March 2012.