Effective institutional capacity building in Road Sector in Tanzania is very challenging especially in the promotion of affordable and appropriate technologies. This is because several projects carried out in this area have not led to sustainable results. The Road Rehabilitation and Maintenance project in Lindi and Mtwara Regions (RRMP) was uniquely designed to support district authorities to manage and maintain rural roads in a sustainable way. During project implementation period, 1998-2002, eleven districts were gradually empowered to engage qualified key technical staff, set up proper planning and transparent procurement procedures. Appropriate techniques and technologies were identified and demonstrated. In private sector participation, nineteen Labour-based contractors were trained out of which fourteen were registered by the Contractors Registration Board. Following the emphasis and encouragement in women participation, six of the companies were established and run by women. In order to ensure the availability of suitable fleet of equipment for road works, an autonomous Equipment Hire Unit was established. A total number of 345 km were rehabilitated, out of which 112 km by Labour-based methods. Despite the constraints, the overall project objective of supporting social and economic development and alleviation of poverty in rural areas in Lindi and Mtwara regions by capacity building and improving roads was fulfilled in short term perspective. The achievements attained indicate that this approach is likely to ensure long-term sustainability for rural road infrastructure in the targeted districts. Hence the project will still be engaged in the monitoring phase to make sure that the momentum so far reached is not lost. This paper will document the experiences gained and lessons learnt from the design and implementation of this project for sharing and possible further replication in other areas as well. For the covering abstract see ITRD E135448.
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