Improving Transport Project Appraisals
In the Islamic Countries
27
procedures; a clear set of criteria against which the appraisals are assessed; an independent
review and supervision mechanism.
Ad 3) Publicity
Stakeholders involvement is part of the governance system and reflects the extent to which
project appraisal and selection includes the view and voices of stakeholders external to the
public administration, including the wider public. The element of publicity can be broken down
into two distinct sub-elements: first, the use of project appraisal reports during the decisional
phase in order to inform stakeholders; second, the report publication after the decision has been
taken, for transparency purposes.
On both aspects, different practices are in use. A tension exists between transparency and
stakeholder involvement on one side, and confidentiality and political sensitivity on the other
side. How the trade-off is solved on a case-to-case basis may depend also on the local
administrative traditions. In some countries, reports are made publicly available and serve as a
contribution to public debate on the realisation of major infrastructures or to research in the
field of public investment. In other cases, information included in them is seen as sensitive, and
therefore remains undisclosed to the public. For example, no requirement for public information
on the CBA of major projects under the EU Cohesion policy exists, while the WB regularly
publishes its Project Appraisal Documents, provided that sensitive issues (e.g. revenue flows of
private service operators) are not disclosed 8 presents an overview of the countries
involved in the OECD benchmark on publication of CBA results.
Figure 1.7: Public availability of CBA of major capital investment9
Source: CSIL processing OECD survey data
8 They are available at the following link: http://www-
7283&siteName=WDS&docTY=540656&pageSize=20
9 Number of respondents are presented on the vertical axis.
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Yes, they are uploaded on
the web and openly
accessible by the wider
public
No, they are confidential Yes, they can be available
upon request
Other