NTU has been awarded the EU funded project "Preparation of comprehensive transport sector guidelines for ACP countries"

The overall objective of the project, with implementation period of 15th months, is to contribute to the achievement of inclusive political, economic and social development through enhanced regional integration of ACP countries with focus on Sub-Saharan Africa, and to support achieving the MDGs. NTU will contribute to strengthened Africa-wide capacity to regulate, organize, promote and finance improved inter-regional and continental transport infrastructure and services through interconnectivity across regions, by promoting safe trans-boundary transport corridors and harmonized transport policies. To this end, the project will specifically update and/or prepare a comprehensive set of transport sector guidelines for ACP countries. The purpose of the guidelines is to provide the African Union Commission (AUC), the Regional Economic Communities (REC), the Corridor Authorities and the African countries a readily available and common source of reference and assistance in their effort -to identify, document and implement inter-regional and continental transport infrastructure projects. In view of updating the existing transport sector guidelines, NTU will analyze relevant publications and studies of development partners, resulting in identification of best practices and guiding principles for ensuring safe and sustainable transport infrastructure. NTU’s team will assess in detail all specific areas, as outlined in the Terms of Reference among such as: • Preparation of transport sector support: • transport services; • Sustainable and green transport and transportation solutions; • Core transport network corridors development; • Awareness on road safety; • Funding facilitation for capital investments and maintenance; Findings in the above areas will be discussed with the project stakeholders, adopting the approach of a peer-review mechanism, NTU will present the findings to the stakeholders’ round table for discussion and feedback in order to ensure a participatory approach to collect views and contributions of all stakeholders on each stage of the project. On the basis of the contributions received from the stakeholders, NTU’s team will proceed with updating the existing guidelines on the identified areas, which will be then discussed and validated by the consequent stakeholders’ round tables. The produced document will be lastly edited and published in collaboration with the AUC.