Publication:
Implementation and Impact of RMI : A Survey of Stakeholders in Seven Member Countries

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Files in English
English PDF (683.78 KB)
219 downloads
English Text (203.63 KB)
79 downloads
Published
2001-12
ISSN
Date
2014-04-08
Editor(s)
Abstract
Following extensive consultations with both public and private sector stakeholders, the Road Management Initiative (RMI) formerly known as Road Maintenance Initiative was launched in the late 1980.s as a component of the Sub-Saharan Africa Transport Policy Program (SSATP). This program was led by the Africa Region Infrastructure Department of the World Bank and the Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) in response to an increasing concern over deteriorating road infrastructure in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) despite substantial capital investments by governments and donors. Since its inception, the RMI has focused its activities on finding ways and means of reversing the process of decline that was trapping SSA governments in the cycle of road building, roads collapsing prematurely and roads being rebuilt long before the end of their design life. These activities have generally been pursued within the context of a key concept to emerge from the RMI program. that of commercialization of the roads sector, i.e. bringing roads into the market place, charging for their use on a fee-for-service basis and managing them like any other business. At the 14th RMI Annual Coordinating Committee Meeting (CCM) held in Pretoria, South Africa in December 1999, member states recommended the commissioning of a survey in selected countries to obtain stakeholders views on the RMI vision and strategy and on what changes seem necessary in the RMI approach to more effectively facilitate implementation of sustainable reforms. The survey was undertaken in seven countries: Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe and the key issues addressed were: 1) Stakeholders perceptions of the RMI vision for sustainable road management; 2) The barriers, constraints and concerns hampering attainment of the RMI vision; 3) The need for change in the RMI approach, focus and resources; and 4) Indicators to be used to monitor progress in the implementation and impact of reforms. This paper reports on the survey's outcome.
Link to Data Set
Citation
Pinard, M.I.; Kaombwe, S.M.A.. 2001. Implementation and Impact of RMI : A Survey of Stakeholders in Seven Member Countries. Sub-Saharan Africa Transport Policy Program working paper series (SSATP);no. 62. © http://hdl.handle.net/10986/17693 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Report Series
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue

Related items

Showing items related by metadata.

  • Publication
    Institutional Development and Good Governance in the Highway Sector
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010) Bandyopadhyay, Arnab; Stankevich, Natalya
    The World Bank financed the Gujarat State Highway Project (GSHP) during 2001-07. The project development objective was to enhance the capacity of the Government of Gujarat (GOG) for effective and efficient planning and management of road infrastructure, while concurrently maximizing existing road infrastructure asset productivity through priority investments and increased maintenance funding. The project not only achieved its objective and targets successfully, but also was implemented with a significant cost reduction (about 23 percent). The GSHP resulted in a reduction in the backlog of major maintenance and an improved network to meet rapidly growing transport demand in the state. The project had the unique distinction of no contract disputes, a rarity among the highway development projects in India. The project also set best practices in developing and managing a very comprehensive asset management system, state of the art quality assurance framework and a very comprehensive training and capacity building program. The annual road sector allocation has grown from USD 30 million in 1995-1996 to an impressive USD 610 million in 2010-11, currently the second largest among all the Indian states. This study attempts to identify the key elements of the Gujarat road sector reforms and explores whether and, if so, how such reforms can be replicated across other Indian states and possibly even in other countries in the region.
  • Publication
    Overload Control Practices in Eastern and Southern Africa : Main Lessons Learned
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010-04) Pinard, Michael Ian
    The prevalence of heavy goods vehicle overloading across Sub-Saharan Africa has been a matter of concern for some time. The overloading leads to rapid deterioration of road pavements and imposes a heavy cost on some of poorest countries in the world. The countries are forced to spend ever increasing amounts on road rehabilitation. Consequently, unless the problem is tackled effectively, there will be no sustainable improvement in the condition of the road network across much of the region. The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the Southern Africa Office of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) working under the Regional Economic Communities Transport Coordinating Committee established under the Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) Transport Policy Program (SSATP) have identified vehicle overload control as one of the priority areas to be addressed in their 2006-07 work program. The high magnitude of what essentially are avoidable costs due to overloading underscores the importance of dealing effectively with a number of perceived challenges in overload control. In this regard, this paper identifies and addresses various lessons learnt, key issues and challenges, emerging good practice and technical options for dealing with various aspects of overload control in the Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) region as a basis for improving the efficiency of transport operations and facilitating trade along regional transport corridors.
  • Publication
    Improving the Sustainability of Road Management and Financing in Azerbaijan
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-10-13) World Bank
    A well-maintained road network that provides the level of service required by road-users is an important element of Azerbaijan's development strategy to accelerate economic growth and reduce poverty. As part of this strategy, the Government of Azerbaijan (Government) has undertaken major capital improvements on the major arterial road network. However, the secondary and local roads continue to be underfunded, and a large rehabilitation backlog has been accumulating in recent years. Deferred maintenance leads to a future burden of more expensive rehabilitation and road reconstruction: for every US$1 in deferred maintenance, there is an associated US$4 cost to road-users. To avoid such a scenario, the Government needs: (i) to devise an institutional and financing framework that provides adequate funding for maintenance and rehabilitation; and (ii) to finance capital improvements on key priority roads. The objectives of this study are: (i) to identify the weaknesses and challenges confronting the sustainability of road maintenance and rehabilitation; (ii) to determine to what extent these factors are linked to particular institutional and financing arrangements; and (iii) to assess how these factors can be resolved. The study makes a series of recommendations aimed at improving the management and financing of the road sector in Azerbaijan.
  • Publication
    Emerging Good Practice in Overload Control in Eastern and Southern Africa : Selected Case Studies
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-05) Pinard, Michael Ian
    The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the Southern Africa Office of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) working under the Regional Economic Communities Transport Coordinating Committee (REC-TCC) established under the leadership of the Sub- Saharan Africa Transport Policy Program (SSATP) have identified vehicle overload control as one of the priority areas. This paper is the third in a series of three publications dedicated to the overwhelming problem of overloaded vehicles damaging roads throughout Africa. The first paper presented the overall problem and related guidelines on developing sound and sustainable control measures based on lessons learned. These lessons learned captured in the second volume are from experiences collected in Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Botswana, four countries where some good practices are emerging that could serve as a platform for wider replication in the Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) region. The selection of these countries to be used as case studies was based on a previous survey carried out in some 18 countries representing four Regional Economic Communities (SADC, COMESA, ECOWAS and CEMAC).
  • Publication
    Rethinking Infrastructure Delivery: Case Study of a Green, Inclusive, and Cost-effective Road Program in Nicaragua
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-06) Muzira, Stephen; Hernandez de Diaz, Damaris
    This paper presents a development case study on alternative thinking in rural infrastructure delivery. Delivery in this case is achieved in a manner that advances the green growth, social inclusion and cost-effectiveness agendas. The need for green and inclusive approaches in reaching development goals cannot be overstated. At the same time, the use of public funds should ensure value for money and stretch government resources as far as they can go. Inclusion refers to the empowerment of all citizens to participate in, and benefit from the development process, removing barriers against those who are often excluded. The use of a community development approach is presented in this paper to demonstrate how this has been achieved on large scale and in a cost-effective way without compromising quality or timing. Heightened roles and responsibilities are conferred to the local target authorities and populations in this infrastructure delivery approach, and this experience is presented as a best practice that could be emulated in similar development work. On the technical front, most road infrastructure delivery in many countries is heavily mechanized and undertaken using default asphalt surfacing. This paper presents the adoption of an alternative and green paving material that is also cost-effective at the secondary rural road level.

Users also downloaded

Showing related downloaded files

  • Publication
    Regional Poverty and Inequality Update: Latin America and the Caribbean, October 2025
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-10-23) World Bank
    This brief summarizes recent facts related to poverty and inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) using the latest wave of harmonized household surveys from the Socio-Economic Database for LAC (SEDLAC). This brief was produced by the Poverty Global Practice in the LAC Region of the World Bank.
  • Publication
    Digital Africa
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13) Begazo, Tania; Dutz, Mark Andrew; Blimpo, Moussa
    All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.
  • Publication
    Housing Subsidies for Refugees
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-01-22) Tamim, Abdulrazzak; Smith, Emma; Palmer, I. Bailey; Miguel, Edward; Leone, Samuel; Rozo, Sandra V.; Stillman, Sarah
    Refugees require assistance for basic needs like housing but local host communities may feel excluded from that assistance, potentially affecting community relations. This study experimentally evaluates the effect of a housing assistance program for Syrian refugees in Jordan on both the recipients and their neighbors. The program offered full rental subsidies and landlord incentives for housing improvements, but saw only moderate uptake, in part due to landlord reluctance. The program improved short-run housing quality and lowered housing expenditures, but did not yield sustained economic benefits, partly due to redistribution of aid. The program unexpectedly led to a deterioration in child socio-emotional well-being, and also strained relations between Jordanian neighbors and refugees. In all, housing subsidies had limited measurable benefits for refugee well-being while worsening social cohesion, highlighting the possible need for alternative forms of aid.
  • Publication
    Ukraine Country Environmental Analysis
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-01) World Bank
    The objective of the Country Environmental Analysis (CEA) is to assess the adequacy and performance of the policy, legal, and institutional framework for environmental management in Ukraine, in light of the decentralization process of environmental governance and wider reform objectives, and to provide recommendations to government to address the key gaps identified. Ukraine is the second largest country in Europe and has a population of 43 million, the majority of whom live in urban areas. It is a lower middle income country, with the services, industry and agriculture sectors being main contributors to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Ukraine faces a number of environmental challenges, as identified in its National Environmental Strategy 2020 (NES). Key among these are: air pollution; quality of water resources and land degradation; solid waste management; biodiversity loss; human health issues associated with environmental risk factors; in addition to climate change. The scope of Ukrainian environmental legislation is quite broad and comprehensive (more than 300 legal acts) and covers most areas of environmental protection and natural resources management. However, the environmental legislation faces a number of weaknesses:The environmental legislation is largely declaratory in nature and does not have all the essential enforcement mechanisms for the implementation of legal acts and international agreements; Many of the acts are not coordinated with each other; and Legislation undergoes limited analysis of its impact—for example, no in-depth analysis such as Regulatory Impact Analysis is conducted for proposed pieces of legislation.
  • Publication
    Thailand Monthly Economic Monitor, October 2025
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-10-22) World Bank
    Fiscal conditions remained stable, with a modest widening of the deficit to 3.1 percent of GDP. New stimulus measures are expected to support short-term demand without breaching the public debt ceiling. Inflation stayed negative, reflecting lower energy and food prices amid subdued domestic demand. The central bank kept the policy rate unchanged, citing limited policy space. Thailand’s growth momentum has slowed further as manufacturing activity and services weakened as projected. Tourism remained subdued, largely due to fewer Chinese visitors. Goods exports also slowed as earlier front-loaded orders faded, particularly in agriculture and industrial goods. The Thai baht depreciated in early October as the US dollar appreciated and the current account turned negative.