Ethiopian roads authority gets 245 million USD from World Bank

By Dereje Berhanu

ADDIS ABABA,Ethiopia- The Ethiopian Road Authority has announced that the World Bank has approved a 245 million USD loan that would support and expand the country’s road network.

The loan will be used for construction of the Mekenajo-Denbedolo, Welkite-Hosanna and Ankober-AwashArba roads, according to ERA The Ankober-AwashArba road has 89-km length and   the Mekenajo-Denbedolo road covers 181-km while the Welkitie-Hossana road covers 121-km distance.Construction of the roads will be launched as of the coming Ethiopian budget year and expected to be finalized within three years.

According to ERA the loan is the fourth phase of an Adaptable Program Loan (APL) that is designed to build, maintain, and improve national roads in the Ethiopia.

ERA has 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 Ethiopian government 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.  

Upgrading of Federal Link Roads. Under the first component, three link roads—Mekenajo-Dembi Dolo Link Road (181 km), Welkite-Hosaina Like

Road (121 km), and Ankober-Awash Arba Link Road (89 km)—will be upgraded from earth/gravel to asphalt. 

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. 

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.