Improving Transnational Transport Corridors
In the OIC Member Countries: Concepts and Cases
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policy makers and community leaders to restore its role in social and economic development.
Until then, social capital will not be considered among the major strengths of OIC countries in
promoting growth and development.
Regarding the Sub Sahara African region Islamic Development Bank (2011) concludes that
most countries still fail to maintain road networks adequate for economic and social needs of
the populations. In spite of the challenging opportunities that exist in the context of social
aspects of transportation corridors, the benefits of developing transport corridors along the
African routes have been tremendous. Wider impacts have been the reduction of poverty,
better access to healthcare services and markets, and better access to education. In sum, the
expected benefits of transport corridor development in the African continent go beyond the
improvement of trade competitiveness and include many social benefits such as poverty
reduction or access to health and education.
4.2.5. Safety, security and the legal liability
One of the enduring concerns for seamless trade and closer union between sovereign states is
the aspect of security. Somehow the feeling pervades that “foreigners” will have lower
standards and values. Security is a global issue; it is not local at all for it may be said that “
trouble in one corner of the world impacts on us all’. Never the less, in some regions, armed
conflict is more pervasive than in others. This being the case, concerns over security are
understandable. Clearly a pre-requisite for integration and transport corridor development is
normalization. Without peace, there can be basis for moving ahead with transport corridor
development. Having said this, international transport development can also be seen as peace
builder once overt hostilities have ceased. The study herein makes this point.
Safety, due to civil or non-military actions, such as road accidents, is a concern of course, and
setting high and harmonized technical standards as well as regulation, of issues such as truck
driving hours. This is well covered in the report. But public health is also an issue, when
contemplating transport corridor development, as they provide ready conduits for the spread
of communicable disease. Similarly concerns over animal health, such as foot and mouth
disease, and plant diseases and food hygiene, are pertinent.
Crime spreads along transport corridors, such as weapons, drugs and people trafficking which
may only be contained through the exchange of intelligence. Moreover, trade in illegal and
counterfeit goods, money laundering and other economic crimes need also controlling. Thus, it
can be demonstrated that political cooperation is over-arching, sharing common values,
compatible, if not harmonized laws and the willingness to apply them are all essential qualities
of successful transport corridors.
4.2.6. Technical and Operational Factors
Literatures suggests that the OIC regions suffer from physical barriers to trade – as well as
non-physical barriers, that is to poor inter-operability. Rail infrastructure is in significant
shortage and underutilized, and it has different technical standards in participating countries
In North Africa, missing rail links are an obvious challenge with a very high lack of