The European Union and its member states have a shared commitment and vision to reduce road deaths to close to zero by 2050. This commitment extends to neighbouring countries in the Eastern Partnership with whom the EU aspires to work together to ensure safe regional transport networks.
These networks underpin mutual trade, tourism, cultural exchanges and regional cooperation. Investing in road safety, helps to safeguard all communities and build closer and secure ties between EU member countries and its neighbours.
This shared vision was endorsed on 6 June 2019 through a Joint Declaration signed at the Eastern Partnership Ministerial meeting on Transport in Luxembourg. The Joint Declaration included in its objectives the agreement to work toward the establishment of a new Eastern Partnership Road Safety Observatory (EaP RSO) tasked with addressing and improving road safety.
The purpose of the EaP RSO is to act as a catalyst for developing and strengthening road crash data in each member country, and to support the harmonisation of crash data to enable better national and regional road safety management.
Despite the difficulties posed by the global pandemic and regional conflict, the shared vision for a new Eastern Partnership Road Safety Observatory came into fruition in February 2024. The new Observatory hosted in Georgia, has now begun work to improve road safety data and build collaboration with National Data Coordinators and other stakeholders in the Eastern Partnership countries. This work has been supported by the World Bank and the European Commission’s Directorates General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations (DG NEAR) and for Mobility and Transport (DG MOVE).
In this first Annual Report of the EaP RSO, there is already much to celebrate – including the establishment of a new website, productive exchanges and data sharing by member countries, and evidence of a great desire to learn from best international practice.
We invite you to download our Annual Report and learn more about our work in this founding year of the Observatory, in which we feel we have already demonstrated great potential for saving lives through good road safety data management.
