Ethiopian Review

The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors today approved a US$245 million International Development Association credit1 to the Government of Ethiopia (GoE) to support its continued effort to restore and expand the country’s road network. The credit is the fourth phase of an Adaptable Program Loan (APL) designed to build, maintain, and improve national roads in the Ethiopia.

In 1997, the GoE launched a major 10-year Road Sector Development Program in two phases (RSDP Phases I and II, 1997-2007, now extended to 2010 as Phase III) to address the limited coverage and poor state of the road network as well as the growing transport needs of the country. The Program was launched with significant donor support to create adequate capacity in the road sector, and to facilitate the economic recovery process by expanding and restoring the condition of the essential road network.

The program also sought to develop strong management and technical capacity to manage the road network to address key outstanding sectoral issues.

Twelve years since the launch of RSDP Phase I, the GoE has made remarkable achievements in physical, organizational, social, and financial terms. During RSDP I (1997- 2002), 8,709 km of roads were constructed or rehabilitated of which 2,709 km were federal roads and 6,000 km newly constructed regional roads. During RSDP II (2002- 2007), 988 km of roads were rehabilitated, 1,758 km upgraded and 628 km constructed as new gravel roads while heavy/emergency maintenance was carried out on 4,199 km of asphalt and gravel roads. In addition, over 70,000 km of community roads were constructed by woreda (district) governments.

The Road Sector Development Stage IV Project (APL4) will continue assisting the government in strengthening and increasing its road transport infrastructure and its institutional efficiency in road sector management.

1. Upgrading of Federal Link Roads. Under the first component, three link roads—Mekenajo-Dembi Dolo Link Road (181 km), Welkite-Hosaina Link Road (121 km), and Ankober-Awash Arba Link Road (89 km)—will be upgraded from earth/gravel to asphalt.

2. Strengthening and Building Institutional Capacity. The second component seeks to strengthen and build the capacity of the Ethiopia Roads Authority (ERA) and other agencies. Among the activities to be carried out are a preparatory study toward establishing a Highway Engineering Research Center to address weakness in maintenance quality and technology, training activities for ERA, Regional Roads Authorities, and private sector contractors, and capacity building support for woreda administration and local small size labor based contractors.

3. Network Management Studies. Under the third component, various studies will be conducted to identify maintenance needs and the appropriate funding arrangements for the coming 5 to 10 years, and to develop advanced road/asset management tools and maintenance technology.

“The main road network is the backbone of Ethiopian economy. We are confident that Ethiopia will continue to make good progress in the road sector, as ERA is well known for its strong implementation capacity.”, said Yoshimichi Kawasumi, the Bank’s Task Team Leaders for the project. The project will be implemented by the Ethiopian Roads Authority.

- worldbank