A well-maintained road network is of paramount importance to thedevelopment of sub-saharan africa. Practically 90% of land commerceis dependent on roads. Significant achievements have been made in expanding the road networks across the continent. But, building the infrastructure of institutions and trained manpower to maintain them has proven difficult. Ineffective maintenance has led to widespread and accelerating road deterioration--amplified in recent years because the large number of roads built in the 1960s and 1970s have reached the end of their useful lives and need rehabilitation or reconstruction. The road maintenance and rehabilitation problem has been exacerbated--as are all the region's problems--by the current economic difficulties in sub-saharan africa. Roads, however, are so much an engine of growth that making economically justified expenditures to ensure their continued serviceability deserves priority attention in government spending. There has been a growing realization that road building and road maintenance are not in balance. Policies that favored construction over maintenance clearly have to be changed in favor of approaches that look at road expenditures as a whole within a policy framework that enhances transport availability at misocial irrd9206 ost--to government road agencies, and, more important, to road users. The state of road networks in sub-saharan africa is reviewed and a classification of countries relative to future road development policies is proposed on the basis of road conditions and past experience with road maintenance. Three critical policy issues are identified in terms of achieving well-maintained and serviceable road networks in sub-saharan africa: (a) a national commitment to adequate and reliable financing and budgeting for roads, (b) accountability in the use of public funds for roads in terms of tangible physical performance, and (c) institutional reform and provision of incentive mechanisms to improve efficiency. These policy issues are amplified and recommendations on appropriate funding, planning and progamming mechanisms, improved management of road maintenance operations, and institutional reform and development of human resources are provided. This paper appears in transportation research record no. 1291, Fifth international conference on low-volume roads, may 19-23, 1991, raleigh, north carolina, volume 1.
Samenvatting