Governance of Transport Corridors in OIC Member States:
Challenges, Cases and Policy Lessons
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SECTION 3: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
8 Conclusions and Recommendations
This chapter presents the conclusions and recommendations, based on the findings from the previous
two sections, i.e. the methodologic framework, international good practices and the governance of
transport corridors in OIC member countries. Section 8.1 presents conclusions and Section 8.2
includes recommendations towards improving governance of transport corridors.
8.1 Conclusions on governance of transport corridors improvement
8.1.1 The importance of governance of transport corridors
Transport corridors are key enablers
Developing transport corridors is high on today’s transport and trade agendas. This applies to all parts
of the world, whether it is in the European Union, through the TEN-T programme, or in Africa, through
a number of corridor initiatives, or in Asia, for example though the CAREC programme or the recently
launched UNESCAP Eurasian Transport Corridors. The OBOR initiative, and the impact thereof,
illustrates the importance of transport corridors.
The focus on developing transport corridors, as part of a broader trade and transport facilitation
process, can be explained by the distinct merits of such policy, which includes:
 Providing countries with basic access to maritime ports for their overseas trade (in particular to
landlocked countries), allowing countries to participate in the global market;
 Improving the growth prospects of middle- and low-income countries, especially landlocked
countries. Transport corridors provide a visible and direct opportunity to bring about regional
integration;
 Enabling the design of appropriate interventions related to regulatory and other constraints to
trade facilitation at the corridor level;
 Providing a spatial framework for organizing cooperation and collaboration between countries and
public and private sector agencies involved in providing trade and transport infrastructure and
services.
This contributes to the higher socio-economic objectives of economic development and poverty
reduction in poorer countries, by creating job opportunities and promoting competition.
These global ambitions certainly apply to OIC member countries. With a combined population of more
than 1.7 billion, OIC member countries jointly account for almost a quarter of the world population.
OIC countries have a relatively high and growing market potential. Much of the increase in the market
potential of OIC countries is also due to the increase in intra-OIC market potential. Having said so,
currently intra-OIC trade is low, with an average of less than 10% of the total trade66.
Corridor governance is a critical success factor
The concepts of governance and management of transport corridors are closely related elements, as
shown in When referring to governance in this study, the management aspects are often
incorporated. For example, in the case of a corridor secretariat managing day-to-day transport
corridor functions.
66 As a comparison, intra-EU trade is 50-60%.