Organization for Regional Economic Development Projects: A Middle East Experience

A SERIES of eighty-nine steel towers provid~L~ing modern "microwave" radio now stalk LI-through Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan. Stretching 3000 miles across such natural obstacles as the mountains of Eastern Turkey, the Lut Desert of Southeastern Iran, and the mountains of the Baluchistan area, the new "axis" from Ankara near the Mediterranean to Tehran and thence to Karachi on the Arabian Sea represents a very considerable engineering accomplishment. Yet, more significant for the completion of this communications tie were solutions to critical organizational and administrative issues. Achieving effective coordination of planning and execution in a complex technical enterprise enmeshed in the separate governmental structures of three sovereign Middle Eastern countries required both engineering and organizational decisions. Engineering decisions had to be made which would embrace new technologies consistently from end to end of the Ankara to Karachi "axis" while still reflecting the fact of the intimate intertwining of new facilities with existing, and less modern, internal telephone and telegraph systems in each participating country. Existing systems had to be interconnected and served. Decisions about the "axis" could not be made independently. Organizational issues included the need for a strong coordinating influence on the internal and external financing plans and on the work performance of the four participating countries-a coordinating influence that could be maintained over a period of years. Such were the major elements of a signifi> Natural, political, and organizational obstaclesall had to be overcome in the planning and construction of the Turkey-Iran-Pakistan Telecommunications Project built under the aegis of the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO). From the macro issue of the appropriate role for an international agency, to the micro, but still vital pressures of U.S. private firms, the author treats issues of technical assistance and comparative administration in the 1956-1964 course of events which have today "created a physically visible symbol of practical regional cooperation."