Improving Transnational Transport Corridors
In the OIC Member Countries: Concepts and Cases
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Figure 43: Mediterranean shipping lanes
Source
There is little evidence of interest in a transport corridor development in the participating
countries according to the review of all TAH carried out by the African Development Bank in
2012. The interesting issue to unravel is whether it matters. Is it necessary for there to be in
place multilateral agreements and implementing institutions to promote trade and economic
development that is mutually beneficial to neighboring/contiguous countries? Evidence
suggests from around the world, that for trade to be substantive, meaningful and sustainable, a
high level of political integration is prerequisite. This is because trade is by no means an
isolated matter for it relates to having common values, harmonized legislation and compatible
and similar levels of development. This is not to say that bilateral trade between cooperating
countries is not possible - it clearly is. But if services, human financial and physical resources
and intellectual property are to be seamlessly transferrable, there should be a more
substantive partnership. A common factor in transport corridor development is the existence
of one or more landlocked countries and a limited number of say one or possibly two gateway
ports. In this case, there are no landlocked countries, all countries are maritime, each with
their own sea port.
There is no continuous international railway that parallels TAH1, though some national
railway sections are in place. For example in 2008 work started on constructing a 554 km
double-track railway parallel to the Mediterranean coast between Surt and Banghazi in Libya.
There are some cross-border railway sections in Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco and a pipeline.
Generally, for TAH1 to progress to become a classical multimodal transport corridor there
needs to be more political cooperation.