The Challenge

Declining quality of data in infrastructure sectors was one of the major concerns that prompted a broad World Bank initiative to revitalize focus on infrastructure. The Infrastructure Action Plan (PDF 54 KB) was approved by the Bank's Board of Executive Directors in July 2003. As a part of this plan, the Transport Results Initiative (PDF 2.4 MB) was proposed as a commitment to strengthen transport sector indicators and meet a hierarchy of demands for data, with particular focus on:

• More effective management of sub-sectors to deliver transport services cost-effectively
• Monitoring sector performance in relation to policies
• Tracking regional and global perspectives of transport activities, impacts and trends

The challenge for the Transport Results Initiative is to establish ownership by key sector stakeholders of processes and outputs. Much of what is covered has been attempted before; in most cases, these efforts have not been sustained.

A high priority, while coordinating with the World Bank transport thematic groups, has been to work with regional sector teams, with key development agencies and representatives in middle- and low-income countries.

The Transport Results Initiative contributes to the evolving view of the Transport Sector. This has been articulated by an update of the World Bank's approach to the Transport Sector and by the Independent Evaluation Group's review of recent sector support.

Data is central to Transport Sector Strategies

In May 2005, ten years after the publication of Sustainable Transport, the Transport Sector Board decided to update its Transport Strategy. Meanwhile, the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) has produced a draft report of recent World Bank activity in the Transport Sector - A Decade of Action in Transport: World Bank Assistance, 1995 - 2005. The current discussion of this report endorses the general findings of the Transport Sector Strategy Update, but emphasizes the need to strengthen some findings in order to produce a new World Bank Transport Strategy. It is clear that the new Transport Strategy, which is currently titled safe, clean and affordable... Transport for Development, will place a strong emphasis on continuing the Transport Results Initiative in order to verify the performance and impact of the sector and improve monitoring and evaluation.

REDI, a new tool for Transport Sector assessment

One of the new tools developed as part of the Infrastructure Action Plan is an infrastructure assessment termed “Recent Economic Developments in Infrastructure," or REDI (PDF 34 KB). The objective of this tool is to sharpen the focus of country-level dialogue by basing analysis on improved quantitative information. The Recent Economic Developments in Infrastructure provides a guide for analyzing the infrastructure sector as a whole or individual sub-sectors. 

Following the REDI framework, the transport sector can be assessed through three different yet interrelated and flexible components with different degrees of depth in the analysis of the sector:

• Snapshots: This component provides information on the main policy issues and may propose two to three projects that can be delivered quickly.
• Partial Diagnostics: This component builds on the Snapshot but adds significant depth.
• Full Diagnostics: This component defines the transport lending and policy program for the next five years and adds depth for all issues.