Since spring of 2020 I have been working on the Maritime Connectivity Study for the World Bank. The final report of this study has just been finished.
In my view the most important contribution of this work was the development of Port and Shipping data framework with the purpose of providing a tool for country- and port-level benchmarking. We considered data strategic value and took into account the key performance indicators that are relevant in the context of collecting port and maritime data.
The data framework is developed at two levels. At the country level of the framework, the high level indicators are included. They describe the country-level data in the five areas: connectivity and accessibility, shipping cost, efficiency, environmental impacts, and regulatory environment. At the port level, the framework contains indicators in the same five areas as the country-level framework, but at a more detailed port level.
We validated the framework by applying for benchmarking of three of the Southern Cone countries: Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.
The results of this study will help the Infrastructure Chief Economist’s Office (INFCE) with their InfraSAPs country diagnoses to understand the needs for infrastructure interventions.