Improving Transport Project Appraisals
In the Islamic Countries
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in order to enhance internal capacity building and ensure correct implementation of project
appraisals.
Clear responsibilities should be identified for the quality review of project appraisals conducted
by external consultants. Furthermore, formal quality standards for project appraisals could be
established, facilitating the task of project reviewing.
Emphasis should be put on the socio-economic dimension of project effects. To this end, a
reference document could be prepared listing the socioeconomic effects that shall be
mandatorily considered within project appraisals (with variations depending on transport
mode and project features), and with indications on how to compute them correctly using state-
of-the-art methodologies based on a benchmarking of international good practices. Further, the
national transportation sector could benefit from the introduction of a standardised framework
for a socio-economic assessment (SIA), whose role appears to be currently very limited.
A comprehensive transportation statistics system should ensure the availability of updated data
for forecasting traffic according to state-of-the-art methodologies. To this end, appropriate
measures should be taken to ensure that the categories of data required for demand analysis are
duly included in such database, and that adequate funding provisions enable the updating of
data on a regular basis.
The PTA’s ground-breaking efforts in the field of public transport should be supported and, with
due adaptations, applied to other transport sectors as well, concerning in particular stakeholder
consultation and the introduction of KPIs for the monitoring of the operation phase.
Beyond KPIs, however, the role of ex-post evaluation could be increased by setting up
institutional mechanisms to identify the mid-term and long-term contribution of transport
projects. Such studies could be grounded not only on extensive data collection and quantitative
indicators, but also on in-depth qualitative analysis, which may help identify mechanisms and
determinants beyond the eventual project’s performance.