Improving Transport Project Appraisals
In the Islamic Countries
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9.4 Capacity and tools
Guidelines
The 2011 National Transport Strategy highlighted the formulation of guidelines for identifying
priorities for transport infrastructure projects as a necessary action. According to the Strategy,
the guidelines should include common standards and mechanisms to support decision-making
processes by allowing for a better evaluation of the projects’ priority and feasibility.
Significantly, they should include recommendations on how to assess internal and external costs
and benefits, as well as social and economic impacts. Further, they should be practical and easily
usable by all involved agencies, and provide examples of both assessments and calculations for
different project cases. Indications were offered by the 2011 Strategy not only on the contents
of such guidelines, but also on their actual preparation: they should have been elaborated under
the leadership of the Ministry of Transport, in a close dialogue with the Ministry of Economy and
Planning and the Ministry of Finance and taking into consideration international best practices.
Moreover, all involved ministries and other authorities should have been consulted.
According to interviewed stakeholders, a PTA-commissioned study will be launched in the near
future to prepare a standardised methodology for assessing costs and benefits of transport
projects. These guidelines, covering cost-benefit analysis, cost-risk analysis and wider economic
benefits, will likely provide reference parameters and unit values as well. Their scope (i.e. for
which type of projects the project appraisal will be required) has however not been decided yet.
The preparation of this new framework, in fact, has not started yet: while these guidelines are
planned, as of January 2019 an authorisation to start the process is pending. The study is
expected to start during the first months of 2019.
Capacity
Capacity building measures (seminars and workshops) to promote the application of the
Guidelines were explicitly foreseen as well in the Action Programme of the 2011 Strategy. Today,
according to interviewees, training programmes to improve capacity in transport project
appraisals are among the PTA’s tasks. As a matter of fact, the PTA has established a system of
regular knowledge transfer: any consultant working for the authority (on the urban transport
masterplans and on other projects alike) is requested to work hand in hand with PTA officials
for the purpose of technical capacity building. While the existence of constant dialogue between
consultants and officials certainly represents a significant strength, it can still be noted that such
practices do not equal a systematic capacity building effort.
So far, both the PTA and the Ministry of Transport have largely resorted to the appointment of
external consultants. The 2011 Strategy itself was prepared with the technical support of
external consultants.
Further capacity building measures were identified as necessary by the 2011 Strategy with
regard to environmental impact assessments for roads, railways, ports and airports, the
Presidency for Meteorology and Environment being responsible for their implementation.