The evaluation exercise focuses on threethemes that cut across strategies and project designs duringFY07–16: mobility for all (including the poor, women, andpersons with disabilities), sustainable service delivery,and institutional development. In spite of the pressing needarising from rapid urbanization, Africa has a decliningurban transport portfolio that in the second half of thereview period (FY12–06) focused increasingly on urban roads.Upper-middle-income countries represent 43 percent of theevaluation portfolio commitments.Overall, the World BankGroup has been effective in supporting improved servicequality and increased access, but approaches based onincreasing infrastructure capacity are not balanced withapproaches based on demand management. Among disadvantagedgroups the poor received the most support. Much lessattention was paid to the special needs of women anddisabled persons.Affordability of urban transport servicesis rarely analyzed in the World Bank Group’s projects, withunknown impact on the mobility of the disadvantaged.Financial sustainability remains a challenge for theprovision of public transport services. Financing gapsbetween revenues and operation and maintenance costs arecommon. The World Bank is often optimistic in appraising thecosts, timing, and financial viability of mass transitprojects.Efforts to engage the private sector to achieveoperational efficiencies and improved financing seldomcombine the policy and institutional strengths of the WorldBank with transactional strengths of the InternationalFinance Corporation and the Multilateral InvestmentGuarantee Agency.The World Bank Group has achieved localizedenvironmental mitigation benefits along key urban transitcorridors or systems, but broader environmental benefitscould be still be achieved by using a comprehensive approachthat combines upstream (policy and sector framework) anddownstream (operational) measures.Weak institutionalcapacity and coordination remains a critical challenge inthe urban transport sector. Institutional developmentsupport is a part of 80 percent of World Bank Groupprojects, yet these often focus on a single local bodyduring a one-time project. Longer-term and more ambitiousinstitutional reform engagements occurred in only a fewcities.The World Bank Group’s contribution to urbantransport development goes beyond projects. Investmentsoften provide a platform for the World Bank Group to offerguidance, training, technical assistance, and learningthroughout the project cycle, South-South learning andexchange, and good practices for demonstration to sectorstakeholders and further adoption.
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