Preparatory Documents for the International Seminar

• Seminar first Announcement
• Seminar second Announcement
• Seminar final Announcement

The International Seminar attended by more than 130 delegates with diverse professional backgrounds such as the World Bank, academia and public and private enterprise, from more than 30 countries. The seminar's theme The performance and governance of roads and transport administrations explored five sub themes: organisation structures, performance of administrations, performance management frameworks, governance and anti-corruption.

In the context of a post-global financial crisis economy, transport and road agencies are under increasing pressure to deliver more with less government investment, find efficiency savings and achieve the best value for money services. These challenges are driving the pursuit of optimal organisation structures and governance arrangements, attracting and retaining the right skilled staff and private sector involvement in the construction and maintenance of infrastructure and services. As noted by the Deputy Minister for Works in the Government of Tanzania the Hon. Gerson Lwenge, poor governance of transport administrations can lead to inequality, slow down economic growth and creates greater opportunity for corruption to occur.

The aim of the seminar was to share knowledge and discuss best-practice approaches to governing and measuring the performance of transport administrations. The delegates gained a clear understanding of how good performance management can improve the effectiveness of roads for communities and stakeholders, the importance of communicating the agency's performance to the community and stakeholders and most importantly, a shared understanding of the future global direction of road and transport administrations.

The seminar was made up of six sessions, five discussions and 15 presentations, covering topics such as the structure of transport organisations, developing governance frameworks and performance indicators, and capturing data to support decision making. There were case studies of lessons learnt from other agencies and approaches such as the creation of transport super-agencies in Sweden and Australia. Survey respondents called for more case studies indicating that examining case-studies was one of the most valuable experiences for delegates.

Overall, the seminar was a great success. However, perhaps the real success of the seminar was providing a technical forum for people with diverse perspectives to exchange ideas, experiences and the corresponding successes and failures of different approaches to the challenges facing transport and road agencies. This is particularly significant for developing and transitioning economies, where transport is the pre-requisite for viable economic development and growth into the future.