Etiopien, det store ufremkommelige bjergland på “Afrikas Tag” med 80 millioner for det meste meget fattige indbyggere, er inde i et gigantisk årtilangt udviklingsløft med store midler fra internationale donorer.
I transportsektoren, hvor den seneste store udbygning foregik under den italienske besættelse (1936-41), har først kejserstyrets efterladenhed og senere krige, hungersnød og etnisk og politisk uro sat en effektiv bremse på udbygningen.
Men de seneste 10 år har piben fået en anden lyd, hvilket denne artikel fra Verdensbanken søger at skildre. Også Etiopiens eneste nedslidte jernbane sættes i stand, se http://www.u-landsnyt.dk/indhold.asp?ID=18906&mode=Nyhed
Ethiopia Road Sector Development Project Drives Economic Growth and Opportunity
* With support from the World Bank and other partners, Ethiopia launched a program in 1997 to improve development
* The Road Sector Development Program has shown many successes including infrastructure and policy reform
* More than 75.000 kilometers of road, including rural access roads, have been constructed or rehabilitated (sat i stand)
ADDIS ABABA, 3 August, 2009: Roads are the backbone of a nations infrastructure and the frame of a its economic development.
They support growth in agriculture and industry, open corridors, port links and tourism areas, and connect each region to the rest of the country. Roads also furnish access to internal markets and social infrastructure such as schools and health centers.
In the 1990s, the Government of Ethiopia knew that a major expansion of the road network was necessary to meet its development goals – namely,
(a) advance the private sector;
(b) upgrade and expand essential infrastructure; and
(c) conserve the environment.
With this is mind, Ethiopias leaders formulated the 10-year Road Sector Development Program (RSDP 1997–2007), a two-phased integrated package of investments, reforms, and institutional reorganization. The program was later extended to include a third phase up to the end of June 2010.
A Project Paved with Good Intentions and Better Results
Project planners first looked at the countrys overall road sector issues. They defined policy and institutional reforms, as well as the levels of interventions that would help achieve their objectives. The program was then designed to achieve the following:
– Improve trunk and regional/rural road access to meet the agricultural and other economic development needs
– Build institutional capacity in both the public and private sectors for sustainable road development and maintenance
– Provide economic opportunity for the rural poor both through increased employment in rural road works and affordable transport and services.
Eleven years after phase I of the roads project, and now through the implementation of phase II and III, there have been remarkable changes in both Ethiopias road conditions and the road sector.
– Rural people have now doubled their access to all-weather roads, which has led to a reduced transport burden, womens empowerment and improved agricultural incomes, said Yoshimichi Kawasumi, the World Banks project leader.
– These outcomes are the result of combined contributions by Government, investing in regional rural roads, and development partners in restoring the main road network. The classified main roads have nearly doubled to about 45.000 kilometers with the increase in roads in good condition, noted he.
During phase one, 8.709 km of roads were constructed or rehabilitated.
The first two components of the project alone upgraded the countrys major connectors, including the Modjo-Awash-Gewane-Mille (442 km) on the import-export corridor, and the Awash-Hirna-Kulubi-Dire Dawa-Harar (311 km), a gateway to the eastern part of Ethiopia and Somalia.
Phase II included the rehabilitation of 988 km of roads, upgrades to 1.758 km, and the construction of 628 km of new gravel roads (grusveje). And, as of September 2008, heavy or emergency maintenance was completed on 4.199 km of asphalt and gravel roads, and some 70.000 km of community roads were constructed.
As a result, today, the proportion of federal and regional roads in good condition far outweighs the proportion of roads in fair and poor condition. For the road user this means an extended, better built and maintained road network.
– Over the past 15 years, I travel from Addis Ababa to Harar at least twice a year for both business and to visit relatives, says Abdella Derese, a motorist who lives in Addis, adding:
– Prior to the road being built, because of the bad conditions of the road, it used to take me up to 16 hours to get to Harar. Now it takes less than eight hours.
For the rural population it means secured access to greater resources and opportunities in the way of better markets, faster access to health services, lighter transport burdens, and more employment.
Institutional, as Well as Structural, Changes
In addition to infrastructure changes, the Road Sector Development Programs institutional development impact has been substantial. It supports the re-establishment of the Ethiopian Road Authority (ERA), now the projects implementing agency, as an autonomous institution with its management accountable to a board.
Because of this, major reforms have been introduced, particularly those aimed at commercializing the ERAs operations. This ensures reliable road infrastructure and efficient road agencies.
Other highlights of the project include:
– A six-fold increase in annual road fund revenues;
– An increase to 58 percent in 2008 in the share of the annual contract price awarded to local contractors;
– Smaller transport tariffs and less travel time reported by rural populations;
– An increase in income opportunities for women from labor-based works and a smaller domestic transport burden; and
– A wider range of alternative income and diversification of agriculture, translating to higher prices for commercial sales of agricultural produce and decreased agricultural inputs.
The Ethiopian government and its partners point to policy and institutional reforms, as well as procedural changes, as the reason for the projects success. The government has also expressed a commitment to further improving and extending the main road network under the Road Sector program.
World Bank Support
The World Banks first contribution to the governments Ethiopia Road Sector Development Program was in the form of an International Development Association credit (rentefrit lån) of 309,2 million US dollar (1998-2005), which was followed by an Adoptable Program Lending of 845 million in four stages (2004-1016).
The Bank, with other donors, has provided grants and credits to the program since 1998; so far, total Bank support is over 1,1 billion dollar (5,7 milliarder DKR).
Partners in the project include the European Union, African Development Fund, Department of International Development, UK (DFID), Norwegian Development Fund, Deutsche Gesellshaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), (Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (German Bilateral Aid) Japan, Italy, and the Netherlands.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
