Historical Road Management Context in Africa

_________________________

Since the late 1990s, Africa has experienced a wind of changes in its approach to road management and
financing. It has become increasingly apparent that traditional approaches, which have relied on
management of roads through a Government Department and financing them through general budget
allocations, have commonly not worked.
The performance of Road Funds had been generally quite poor in Sub-Sahara Africa. Some of the
problems cited were; poor financial management; absence of independent status; extensive use of funds
for unauthorized expenditures; diversion of funds; and weak over site. As a result, most of these earlier
‘first generation’ Road Funds had actually been closed down – very often at the express urging of the
World Bank and IMF (Heggie, 2003 and SSATP).
This had led to the development of the Road Management Initiative (RMI) in 1997, a donor-funded, World
Bank managed programme supporting the formulation and implementation of appropriate policies in the
road sector.
The RMI has, over the past ten years, worked with interested African Countries to identify the underlying
causes of poor road management policies and develop an agenda of reforms that will facilitate
sustainable management of the public road networks.
Working with broad-based steering committees on a country level, the RMI commits member states to
the development of a harmonised regional road sector policy with the following main features:
a) Clear separation and allocating of responsibilities for road funding and road management.
b) Establishing accountable and autonomous roads institutions with public and private sector
participation in key decision-making organs.
c) Adopting commercial management practices to foster institutional, economic and technical
efficiency by contracting out of road construction and maintenance activities.
d) Adopting appropriate financing principles and practices to secure adequate and sustainable
sources of funding through road user pay principles.
e) Dedicating revenues from roads to their provision, operation and maintenance.
f) Identifying sustainable funding sources to ensure a regular flow of funds