BIMSTEC Master Plan for Transport Connectivity

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• Publisher: Asian Development Bank
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9789292690694
• eBook ISBN: 9789292690700
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Transportation Industry
• Index: Business

The Master Plan presents a comprehensive 10-year strategy and action plan for improving the subregion's transport linkages across the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) member states. It is intended to guide actions and promote synergies among various connectivity frameworks and help achieve sustainable development of the region. A specific framework is presented here for organizing a set of policies, strategies, and projects toward realizing a shared vision of peace, prosperity, and sustainability. With BIMSTEC's unique geographical position as a bridge linking South and Southeast Asia, this document is also relevant to its neighboring regions. BIMSTEC was established as a regional organization in June 1997 to promote free trade within the region, increase cross-border investment and tourism, and promote technical cooperation.

Appendix 1
Relevance of Transport in the Agenda for Sustainable Development

Transport has become more important in the global development agenda in recent years. In the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, sustainable transport is mainstreamed across several Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and targets, especially those related to food security, health, energy, economic growth, infrastructure, and cities and human settlements. Transport-related targets are included in 8 of the 17 SDGs (Goals 2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, and 13), illustrating the cross-cutting role that transport plays in sustainable development. In the context of the SDGs, transport is not only a matter of developing transport infrastructure and services, but also encompasses the ease of reaching destinations in terms of proximity, convenience, and safety. The following table sets out the relevance of transport to selected SDGs.

Table A1: Relevance of Transport to Selected Sustainable Development Goals

SDG Goal	Relevance of Transport
Goal 1: End poverty in all its forms everywhere	Transport reduces absolute poverty through economic efficiency—by lowering costs and enhancing opportunities, improving access to services and markets, and enhancing social well-being of communities, building productive capacity, as well as promoting trade and regional and global integration.
Goal 2: End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture	The correlation between transport and food security is particularly visible in the context of rural accessibility. Strong attention to “food-transit connections” is, furthermore, vital to keep consumer prices affordable. Logistics improvements can also be effective in the management of food price risks, shocks, and instabilities. Improved access in remote areas will additionally increase the outreach of extension workers.
Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages	The transport sector is a major source of air pollution in cities and often the largest source of small particulate matter (PM) and nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions that drastically affect public health. Some of the main policies that can reduce air pollution by up to 95% include (re)designing cities such that active and public transport is the main mode of transport; and providing cleaner fuels and implementing vehicle emission standards for light-duty and heavy-duty vehicles.
Goal 6: Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all	Reliable, low-cost, and efficient transport infrastructure and services can improve physical access to water and sanitation facilities—particularly in rural areas.
Goal 7: Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all	Transportation accounts for approximately 25% of the world’s energy demand and for about 61.5% of all the oil used each year. Various types of actions that can be taken to improve the efficiency of transport fuel use, like improving road conditions, providing high-quality fuels, promoting eco-driving, better vehicle technologies including promoting electric vehicles, and the overall improvement of urban transport systems.
Goal 9: Resilient Infrastructure, sustainable industrialization and innovation	To achieve sustainable industrialization, transborder connections and transport development corridors for spatial inclusion of and connectivity between economic hubs play a crucial role. A robust and resilient transportation infrastructure is an essential element for a resilient supply chain as disruption to the global, interregional, national and local trade lanes could impact development, as transport costs could be increased and delivery of products delayed.
Goal 11: Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable	Transport ensures access to services, goods, and opportunities. Compact city planning can reduce the need to travel. Affordability of transport for the urban poor and accessibility of all, including for people with disabilities, women, the elderly, and other vulnerable groups are essential for the city to be inclusive.
Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns	The shortage of reliable rural transport services is responsible for food crops not reaching the market at all and holding back farmers to expand food production for the market.
Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts	Sustainable transport solutions offer significant mitigation potential and are essential in meeting the 2°C goal to minimize the impacts of climate change. To achieve this target, comprehensive sustainable transport solutions have to be pursued. Actions also have to be prioritized toward adaptation or enhancing the resilience of transport infrastructure and services.

SDG = Sustainable Development Goal.

Source: UN-Habitat, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and SLoCaT 2015. Partnership on Sustainable, Low Cost, Carbon Transport. Analysis of the Relevance of Each of the 17 SDGs. 24 Sept...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Tables, Figures, and Boxes
• Foreword
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Executive Summary
• I. Introduction and Background
• II. Overall Master Plan Framework
• III. Roads and Road Transport
• IV. Railways and Rail Transport
• V. Ports and Maritime Transport
• VI. Inland Water Transport
• VII. Civil Aviation and Airport Development
• VIII. Multimodal and Intermodal Transport
• IX. Trade Facilitation
• X. Human Resource Development
• XI. Implementation
• References
• Appendixes
• Footnotes
• Back Cover