Governance of Transport Corridors in OIC Member States:
Challenges, Cases and Policy Lessons
11
a corridor level. The independent nature of such an institution facilitates the communication between
countries. The initial efforts of international organisations are required to convince the member states
of the merits of joint corridor development. For TRACECA, the EU withdrew funding for the corridor
secretariat. But after already a decade of cooperating, the member states found enough common
ground to continue in joint corridor governance.
Third, the establishment of a corridor secretariat significantly speeds up the development of a corridor.
The main objectives are discussed during ministerial meetings and steering committees – but a
separate institution is required to facilitate the surrounding process. A corridor secretariat takes up
tasks such as preparing meetings, ensuring communication between nations is maintained and
transforming the objectives discussed by national transport representatives into action, essentially
functioning as the glue between the member states. When the corridor is maturing, the corridor
secretariat may be expanded with a technical assistance team.
Fourth, developing a sound legal basis is crucial for plans to be converted into actions. The corridor only
works smooth if transport systems are coordinated between the member states. Domestic reforms are
difficult to justify when there is little guarantee that neighbouring countries will adjust their transport
system as well.
Specific recommendations focused on governance level
What follows is that four corridor governance levels can be identified, one for each level of integration.
Each governance level requires different actions to be undertaken. Again, the four levels are not a one-
size-fits all policy solution. What is proposed is that that a corridor manager should develop the
corridor domains in a balanced way. This does not imply that corridor governance should focus on
only one domain. On the contrary, transforming a topic into action takes time, and each topic should
be discussed on a regular basis to assess its actuality and effectivity. For example, negotiations to carry
the legal framework of SEETO to the next level already started in 2007, only three years after signing
theMoU, but the new treatywas signed by the participants a decade later in 2017. The four governance
levels or stages indicate a certain urgency concerning the development of a corridor:
1. Information exchange: this stage centres around finding common ground between the participants.
Various rounds of expert group meetings are organized to identify shared objectives and to agree
on the content of the first legal framework. Ideally, all topics, including the less obvious ones like
promotion, performance monitoring systems and capacity building strategies, are discussed to
sufficient extent;
2. Cooperation : while broad objectives are agreed upon in the previous stage, the cooperation level
centres around the question how each domain will be translated into concrete action. The general
principle is that the corridor is developed separately within each national context. The first joint
infrastructure projects are realized, but usually there is too little support to leverage corridor plans
over national plans. The function of the secretariat is to maintain the dialogue between all national
contexts;
3. Collaboration: in the collaboration stage, each governance topic is developed on the corridor level
to some extent. The participants are convinced of the added value of corridor development and
have made available substantial resources and power to the corridor management. Now there are
many joint projects, also including soft infrastructure measurements, joint project management
with prioritization methodology, performance monitoring system for corridor management,
various means of promotion, stake holder consultation systems and more;