Improving Transport Project Appraisals
In the Islamic Countries
161
Appraisal
aspect
General recommendations
Capacity and
tools
 Capacity building activities should be developed on a structural basis to
capacitate the public and private sector in carrying out project appraisal.
This system can be based on a mix of training, regular updates and skills
development programmes, internal seminar and exchange of good practices
also within different agencies. A system of official certification of
competences, as the one developed by Iran, shall be developed both for
external consultants and public officers. As mentioned above, the public
sector needs to have the capacity to review the quality of the work provided
by the consultant.
 The development of operational manuals are recommended to guide the
project appraisal process. While reflecting the general principles and
methodological guidance, they can allow for adjustments and fine-tuning to
cope with the specificities of types of projects, contexts and procedures. Such
a manual should contain: (i) a description of the appraisal process with
clearly defined steps; (ii) methodological standards, including typical costs
and benefits to be considered and the way they shall be quantified and/or
monetised; and (iii) standard input parameters (discount rate, values of time,
etc.).
Content  The items to be included in the appraisal must be specified in order to leave
poor rooms of manoeuvre to project analyst to deviate from the standard.
 The methodological basis should be firmly established and specified for
each of the content items and where possible laid in manuals, as described
above (capacity and tools).
 Risk assessment should be integrated in the project appraisal process,
including identification of main risks; description of preventive and
mitigating measures; and sensitivity analysis on the key parameters of the
project appraisal (for example investment costs, delay in construction;
change in traffic flows).
Demand
analysis
 Traffic projections, as key barriers of the project’s benefits, should be well
developed.
 The use of transport models should be encouraged, contributing to the
quality of the traffic projections.
Result of
project
appraisal
 The use of project results should be clearly established and results of the
appraisal should be shared with the stakeholders involved.
 As far as possible project appraisal reports must be made available to the
general public as accountability measure. Derogation can be defined for
politically or economically/financially sensitive data or information.
Follow-up
and learning
 Project appraisal should be seen from a project cycle perspective (and not
in isolation). Implementation should be monitored and evaluated. Lessons
learned from this should be incorporated in next project appraisals.
Source: Consortium