Urban Transport for Development : Towards an Operationally-Oriented Strategy

Abstract

This paper arose from the perception that a gap existed between the practice of project design and the formal Bank strategies for transport and urban sectors as stated in the cited reports. Formal strategies tend to be too general to be linked meaningfully to project designs. The paper in hand attempts to close this gap by putting forward a different, operationally-oriented concept of urban transport strategy and derives one such strategy from a review of recent Bank-funded projects. The term "operationally-oriented" means that the strategy is expressed in terms of objectives, policies, institutions and investments, mimicking the structure common to all individual projects. Projects on which the paper is based date from the last 15 years. They exhibit a wide diversity of features, reflecting inherited local conditions, the nature and rhythms of socio-economic changes underway, and the vintage of client-Bank relations. Yet, a strong central tendency is also evident, amounting to a coherent and robust approach. The core strategy, as this approach is called in the paper, aims to protect and nurture public transport services and non-motorized transport modes, with underlying meta-objectives of equity and environmental sustainability.