Proceedings of the 13th Meeting of the
Transport and Communications Working Group
33
Annex 3: The Policy Recommendations
THE ROOM DOCUMENT FOR POLICY DEBATE SESSION OF
13TH MEETING OF THE COMCEC TRANSPORT AND COMMUNICATIONS
WORKING GROUP
The COMCEC Transport and Communications Working Group (TCWG) successfully held its
13th Meeting on March 21st, 2019 in Ankara, Turkey with the theme of “Improving Transport
Project Appraisals in the OIC Member Countries”. During the Meeting, TCWG made
deliberations on the policy recommendations related to the transport project appraisals. The policy
recommendations were formulated by taking into consideration the research report titled
Improving Transport Project Appraisals in the Islamic Countries” and the responses of the
Member States to the policy questions sent by the COMCEC Coordination Office. The policy
recommendations are as followings:
Policy Recommendation I: Designing a systematic framework for transport project
appraisals, indicating the objectives, types and the utilized methodologies.
Rationale:
A consistent framework for identifying, coordinating, evaluating and implementing public
investments is quite important for having better outputs of the project(s) implemented. As a long
and multifaceted process, project appraisal for public investments would be embedded into a
wider framework for decision-making. The transport project appraisal framework must indicate:
 For what types of project appraisal should be carried out and when;
 What is the objective of the appraisal and how the appraisal is expected to facilitate the
decision-making process;
 What type of analysis and methodologies are applied (Cost-Benefit Analysis, Multi-
Criteria Analysis, Cost-Effectiveness Analysis)?
Furthermore, one of the main aims of project appraisal is to define the social benefits of a project.
Cost-Benefit Analysis is a commonly preferred methodology for this purpose, especially for large
transport projects. This methodology is also useful in case of PPP funding, where it can
complement the financial evaluation.
Policy Recommendation II: Developing/Improving manuals and guidelines for having
effective and harmonized transport project appraisals as well as effectively implementing
the existing ones.
Rationale:
Providing clear guidelines is significant in terms of how to carry out project appraisals.
Development of mode-specific appraisal manuals facilitates whole project appraisals processes.
International guidelines and manual can be taken into consideration for the general principles and
rationale, while country-specific parameters and procedures can be developed to better reflect the