Sector Results and Learning:

Transportation

This Transportation Sector Results and Learning page is a repository of evidence generated by all MCC-funded transportation interventions. To promote learning and inform future program design, this page captures monitoring data from key common indicators, showcases recent and relevant evaluations, includes all agency lessons from completed transportation evaluations to-date, and links to learning that has been aggregated across completed evaluations in the sector.

What Do We Invest In?

MCC has funded $3.3 billion in transportation interventions as of September 2024. These interventions fall into the following categories: transportation infrastructure; management, funding, operations and maintenance assistance; and transportation policy, regulatory, planning, financing and institutional development assistance.

  • Management, Funding, Operations and Maintenance Assistance

    These programs focus on building the capacity of local transportation public agencies/institutions to increase funding sources and cost-effectively manage, operate and maintain transportation systems.
  • Transport Infrastructure

    These programs focus on the upgrading, improvement, rehabilitation and maintenance of transportation infrastructure such as roads, ports and airports to reduce transportation costs.
  • Transport Policy, Regulatory, Planning, Financing and Institutional Development Assistance

    These programs focus on building the capacity of local transportation public agencies/institutions to set policies and build planning and implementation capacities to keep transportation costs low.

What Have We Completed So Far?

MCC and its country partners develop and tailor Monitoring and Evaluation Plans for each program and country context. Within these country-specific plans, MCC uses common indicators to standardize measurement and reporting within certain sectors. See below for a subset of common indicators that summarize implementation achievements across all MCC transportation investments as of September 2024.

  • 4,813

    kilometers of roads that have been contracted for design work

  • 4,281

    kilometers that have been contracted for road works

  • 3,862

    kilometers of roads completed

What Have We Achieved?

MCC commissions independent evaluations, conducted by third-party evaluators, for every project it funds. These evaluations hold MCC and country partners accountable for the achievement of intended results and also produce evidence and learning to inform future programming. They investigate the quality of project implementation, the achievement of the project objective and other targeted outcomes, and the cost-effectiveness of the project. The graphs below summarize the composition and status of MCC’s independent evaluations in the transportation sector as of November 2024. Read on to see highlights of published interim and final evaluations. Follow the evaluation links to see the status of all planned, ongoing, and completed evaluations in the sector and to access the reports, summaries, survey materials, and data sets.

Created with Highcharts 11.2.0Evaluations by Type14 (67%)14 (67%)7 (33%)7 (33%)PerformanceImpact
Created with Highcharts 11.2.0No. of EvaluationsEvaluations by Status1111551616PlanningFinalCompleted05101520
Created with Highcharts 11.2.0No. of ReportsInterim Reports - Expected and Actual Publication Date11PerformanceImpact2021012
Created with Highcharts 11.2.0No. of ReportsFinal Reports - Expected and Actual Publication Date11223311112222111122221122PerformanceImpact201420152017201820202021202220232024202520270123456

Highlighted Evaluations

  • Read this Evaluation Brief to learn the results of a project from MCC’s Mozambique Compact that rehabilitated two primary national road segments in Mozambique: the Namialo-Rio Lurio Road (149.7 km) and Nampula-Rio Ligonha Road (103 km).
  • Read this Evaluation Brief to learn the results of a project from MCC’s Moldova Compact that aimed to rehabilitate a 93 kilometer portion of the national M2 Road, including associated structures such as bridges, drainage systems, and culverts.
  • Learn the final results of a project from MCC’s El Salvador Compact that aimed to connect El Salvador’s northern zone with the rest of the country by improving roads, lowering transportation costs, and decreasing travel times.
  • Read this Evaluation Brief to learn the results of a project from MCC’s Senegal Road Rehabilitation Project that was designed to boost economic growth by unlocking the country’s agricultural productivity and expanding access to markets and services.   

What Have We Learned from Our Results?

To link the evidence from the independent evaluations with MCC practice, project staff produce an MCC Learning document at the close of each interim and final evaluation to capture practical lessons for programming and evaluation. Use the filters below to find lessons relevant to your evidence needs.

    • Moldova Compact
    • Road Rehabilitation

    Evaluating periodic maintenance is not realistic within a seven-year evaluation timeframe.

    Evaluating periodic maintenance is not realistic within a seven-year evaluation timeframe. MCC has struggled with evaluation timing for road projects (i.e. how many years after road completion should the evaluation take place). The evaluation could be doneread more

    • Moldova Compact
    • Road Rehabilitation

    High-quality data collection, especially rigorous calibration of technical equipment, provides confidence in evaluation results.

    High-quality data collection, especially rigorous calibration of technical equipment, provides confidence in evaluation results. Roughness measurements were made right after road completion and indicated a very high-quality road. However, these measurementsread more

    • Moldova Compact
    • Road Rehabilitation

    MCC can successfully support the establishment of a dedicated fund for road maintenance.

    MCC can successfully support the establishment of a dedicated fund for road maintenance. In Moldova, MCC led other international financial institutions to work with the Government of Moldova to amend the Road Fund Law to automatically fund maintenance of theread more

    • Moldova Compact
    • Road Rehabilitation

    Roads should be designed to be more durable to require less maintenance.

    Roads should be designed to be more durable to require less maintenance. The rehabilitation of the Moldova road was designed and constructed well. Because the road was designed in accordance to projected axel load and hydrological conditions with rigorousread more

    • Moldova Compact
    • Road Rehabilitation

    Safety features can successfully be incorporated into road design.

    Safety features can successfully be incorporated into road design. Project design included many elements to improve the safety of the road such as geometric design that eliminated dangerous curves, speed bumps, signage, and new pedestrian crossings. Socialread more

    • Moldova Compact
    • Transition to High Value AgricultureRoad Rehabilitation

    The Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Plan should include post program targets for the indicators assessed in the evaluation post program.

    The Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Plan should include post program targets for the indicators assessed in the evaluation post program. The evaluation had to compare data collected in 2020 to the end of compact targets from 2015, the only officialread more

    • Moldova Compact
    • Road Rehabilitation

    When improving road infrastructure, MCC should consider recycling old road pavement to reduce costs.

    When improving road infrastructure, MCC should consider recycling old road pavement to reduce costs. The Moldova Road Rehabilitation Project had a cost savings of approximately $23 million, or 17% of the original projected project cost. The cost reduction wasread more

    • Armenia Compact
    • Rural Road Rehabilitation

    Base evaluation decisions on a clear program logic.

    Base evaluation decisions on a clear program logic. The Armenia roads rehabilitation was designed to improve the economic performance of the agricultural sector; however, the initial program logic was fairly vague about the pathways through which this wouldread more

    • Armenia Compact
    • Rural Road Rehabilitation

    Ensure sufficient statistical power.

    Ensure sufficient statistical power. The evaluation included a small number of road sections – 27 in the treatment group and 29 in the comparison group. Since there is intra-cluster correlation amongst households located around any one road section, theread more

    • Armenia Compact
    • Rural Road Rehabilitation

    Project teams must ensure complete and high quality data is collected both for the Highway Development and Management (HDM-4)/Roads Economic Decision (RED) ERR modeling purposes that feed into project selection and design, and for M&E purposes during and after implementation.

    Project teams must ensure complete and high quality data is collected both for the Highway Development and Management (HDM-4)/Roads Economic Decision (RED) ERR modeling purposes that feed into project selection and design, and for M&E purposesread more

    • Armenia Compact
    • Rural Road Rehabilitation

    Set realistic time horizons and keep data collection plans flexible.

    Set realistic time horizons and keep data collection plans flexible. Often there are delays in large infrastructure projects. The data collection plan for the Armenia roads project was agreed upon early in the compact with the National Statistical Service ofread more

    • Armenia CompactNicaragua Compact
    • Rural Road RehabilitationTransportation

    It is critical to comprehensively address policy and institutional constraints in road maintenance as well as seek assurances from the partner countries that the necessary mechanisms to ensure sustainability of their existing roadway network are in place prior to MCC committing to a capital-intensive road investment project.

    It is critical to comprehensively address policy and institutional constraints in road maintenance as well as seek assurances from the partner countries that the necessary mechanisms to ensure sustainability of their existing roadway network are in place priorread more

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How Have We Aggregated Learning Across the Sector?

MCC has developed a Principles into Practice paper using evidence from completed independent evaluations in the transportation sector Principles into Practice: Lessons from MCC’s Investments in Roads. The Principles into Practice series offers a frank look at what it takes to make the principles MCC considers essential for development operational in the projects in which MCC invests. The learning captured in this paper informs MCC’s ongoing efforts to refine and strengthen its own model and development practice in the transportation sector. MCC hopes this paper will also allow others to benefit from, and build upon, MCC’s lessons.