Commercial Management and Financing of Roads

This report is directed at those who are interested in improving management and financing of roads and making them sustainable in the long term. In developing and transition economies 60 to 80 percent of all passenger and freight transport moves by road, and roads provide the main form of access to most rural communities. Yet most of the roads in these countries are poorly managed and badly maintained. Two regional programs--one in Africa and one in Latin America--were launched to better understand the underlying causes of such poor road maintenance policies and to explore ways of establishing a secure and stable flow of funds. Through these programs, working conclusions about the most effective ways to promote sound policies for managing and financing road networks are drawn. The emerging central concept is commercializaton, which requires four basic building blocks: a) establishing responsibility for managing roads; b) creating ownership of roads by involving users in their management; c) stabilizing road finance by securing an adequate, continual flow of funds; and d) strengthening management of roads by introducing sound businesses practices.