Stage Development, Finance and Legislation for Rural Road Networks in developing countries - The GTZ Experience.

Rural roads in developing countries can generally be considered as the most neglected class of roads as nobody wants them, neither the local ministries, nor foreign donors, although they are vital in providing access to half of the population and for securing the food supply of the country in question. As shown in the Kenyan example (of gravelling rural roads leading from the rural markets to the main roads), earth and gravel roads must be built to economic standards, which constitute the frame conditions for the technical standards. . As shown in the Ethiopian, Zambian and Rwandan examples, the financing of rural roads can be secured if approximately 25% of the national Road Fund or a net two US cents tax per litre of gasoline and per litre of diesel are earmarked for rural roads . However, tangible results for rural roads may only be achieved if a strict prioritysetting in economic terms is followed, as is generally applied in the road sector, i.e. blackfield projects (i.e. maintenance and most urgent "black spots") with an internal rate-of-return (IRR) of 40% or more are considered first, Brownfield projects (i.e. rehabilitation and improvement of existing roads) with an average IRR of 20% are executed second. Greenfield projects (i.e. construction of new projects and additional alignments) with an average IRR of 10% are built last. To ensure access of the rural population, the right placement and organisation of rural markets is crucial, specifically in LLDC countries, where transport costs from the fields and farm houses to the rural markets and collection points (10 km on average) are often as expensive as the subsequent motorised trucking costs (an average of 250 km). Given the special need for maintenance of rural roads, which cannot be organised or supervised by the central administration, a high degree of local participation and a sense of local responsibility are needed.uSummarizing the GTZ experience of sustainable success in rural road projects, three main factors can be identified, as per the following formula: the success of rural roads is a product of Financing times Organisation times Local Participation. For the covering abstract see ITRD E135448.