Sub-Saharan Africa Transport Policy Program

	SSATP > RMI Update - No. 1

RMI Update No.1 - March 2001

			Update on program management
			Coordinating committee meeting
			New publications
			Role and operations of national roads boards
			Roads Economic Decision (RED) model workshop
			Tanzania benefits from contractor development mission and LTAP program
			Pilot survey on RMI vision

Update on program management

As of September 1, 2000, Stephen Brushett has assumed responsibility as Team Leader for the Road Management Initiative. A UK national with senior degrees in Economics and Business, he has worked in various aspects of economics development for 22 years, including 18 years with the World Bank Group. Stephen has worked in about 25 different African countries in that time, including resident assignments in Lesotho and Zimbabwe. He speaks French and some Portuguese. Since 1996, Stephen has been an integral member of the Africa Transport team with country responsibility for Zambia and Malawi as well as with special focus on road management and financing issues. In the interest of an open and collegial work environment, you are invited to contact him at sbrushett@worldbank.org, telephone 1-202-473-4153 for further information on the program or suggestions and comments you may have.

The RMI program team is in the process of being further strengthened through the addition of two full time road sector specialists to be funded by donor partners in the program. The next update will bring news of these assignments together with other changes in the management of the Sub-Saharan Africa Policy Program (SSATP) which are all designed to enhance effectiveness and to improve responsiveness of the program to user demands and emerging regional and country opportunities.

Coordinating Committee Meeting

The 15^thAnnual Coordinating Committee Meeting is set for May 16-20, 2001 to be held in Saly, Senegal. Official invitations to the meeting together with administrative arrangements were mailed out as of April 6, 2001. The meeting objectives are: to take stock of reforms to date; to plot the way forward on further reform and improved implementation; to explore possibilities for better integration of the RMI and RTTP effort for the management and financing of roads; and as a consequence, to define the future role for country level and region wide coordination for both programs as well as the future support that should be provided from the center. Coordinators are reminded to prepare country reports according to the format attached to the invitation letter and return them by May 7, 2001 latest at the following address: nchimuka@worldbank.org

Publications update

One of the most important objectives of the RMI Program is to widely disseminate information on policy reform in road sector and specifically on promising practice and lessons learned from experience gained in the conception and implementation of road management and financing reform. We are pleased to advise that the following publications have been made available in the period of September 2000 to March 2001 and are now accessible through the website www.worldbank.org/afr/ssatp/ or by reference to mdesthuis@worldbank.org, telephone 1-202-458-5953:

* Road User Charges Model, Africa Transport Technical Note No 28

* Introducing the RMI Road Sector Database, Africa Transport Technical Note No 29

* Forecasting Vehicle Fleets in Sub-Saharan Africa Countries, Africa Transport Technical Note No 30

* Implementing Second-Generation Road Funds Lessons Learned, Africa Transport Technical Note No 31

* Reforming Road Management in Sub-Saharan Africa: Overcoming Obstacles to Implementation, Africa Transport Technical Note No 32

* Assessment of Selected Road Funds in Africa, SSATP Working Paper No. 51

Three more publications are under way and will be available before the end of June 2001.

Zambia host workshop on Role and Operations of National Roads Boards*

* As reported by Thor Wetteland, RMI consultant

A number of countries have or are in the process of establishing a National Roads Board including representatives of road users and civil society, as part of the RMI inspired reforms to commercialize management of public roads. Key questions now are: what role such Boards should or can play to best facilitate effective commercialization of road management; and what operational procedures they need to adopt to enable them to best fulfill this role. As there are no acknowledged blueprints on these issues under Sub-Saharan Africa conditions, it is largely up to the Boards themselves using whatever available input from international experience, to define their role and develop suitable operational manuals based on their own experiences.

The Zambian National Roads Board (NRB) which is the longest serving institution of this type in Sub-Saharan Africa, organized and conducted in April 1999 a workshop on the "Role and Operations of National Roads Boards" with participants from the Roads Boards in Cameroon and Malawi. Based on the successful experience of that event, the NRB organized with RMI assistance a second 2-day workshop on the same themes in September 2000 at the request of the newly established Kenya Roads Board (KNRB), the Tanzanian Roads Fund Board (TRFB) and the Lesotho Roads Fund Board (LRFB). This workshop was attended by 75 people including all members and senior staff of the Roads Boards in Kenya, Lesotho, and Tanzania except for ex-officio Permanent Secretary Board members.

The stated expectations of the participants to the September 2000 workshop were to be:

Deliberate on common problems facing Road Fund Boards and share experiences;
Raise awareness of Board members role, responsibilities, required authority and accountability; and
Appraise the Board members with experiences of best practice i.e. tools, procedures and resources that are required to facilitate Board operations in a sustainable and efficient manner.

The workshop included an introduction to the RMI Agenda for Reforms, an overview of donors support of sustainable reforms, and deliberations based on well prepared case studies on "Financing the road sector", "Management of the road sector", "Responsibilities for road sector management", and "Who is an effective manager of road fund"; a video presentation of a provocative role play on "Management of the road sector", and panel discussions on "Ownership of the Road Management Initiative", "Policy framework, systems and procedures for effective road sector management", "Financial management and auditing for transparency and accountability", and "Information dissemination for involvement of road users". In December 2000, the NRB issued a comprehensive summary of the workshop proceedings.

The overall majority of the participants (85%) indicated in the written evaluation questionnaire that while they felt the workshop objectives were not fully met, it largely measured up to their expectations. It appears that most think the workshop should have included a third day which would have given room for more time per session, to more detailed deliberations on financial issues including widening of the revenue base, a comparative analysis of reforms being undertaken in Africa, and perhaps an opportunity for more extensive site visits. Some noted that better prior notification on workshop agenda and procedures could have contributed to make some workshop proceedings more effective. The majority of the participants rated the quality of handouts papers and other material (included in the summary of proceedings) as excellent.

A detailed RMI Workshop Proceedings has been produced by the National Roads Board of Zambia as well as a video entitled RMI Workshop on the Role and Operations of National Road Boards. Contact the Executive Secretary at nrb@zamnet.zm for further information in this regard.

Roads Economic Decision (RED) Model Workshop for Lusophone Countries hosted by Cape Verde*

* As reported by Rodrigo Archando-Callao, RMI consultant and Workshop instructor

From December 11 to 14, 2000, under the RMI program, a four-day hands-on training course was delivered on the Roads Economic Decision Model (RED) as well as a presentation on the Highway Development and Management Model (HDM-4). The course was very well received by all the participants who expressed their satisfaction on the ten course evaluation forms. Using a scale from 0 (deficient) to 5 (excellent), the quality of the subject received a grade of 4.8, the quality of the instructor a grade of 5.0, and the overall satisfaction with the course a grade of 4.8. The general comments praise the course as well as the initiative to hold these types of courses. The suggestions for course improvements indicate that some participants felt that the course could have been longer in time. When asked what support they would need to apply what was learned, they indicated that they would need a) a databank of road network characteristics, b) written materials in Portuguese and/or French, c) support from a good information analysis, d) a copy of the HDM-4 model. The participants indicated that they have learned a) the basic concepts for the economic evaluation of road investments, b) what is needed to check if an economic feasibility matches reality, c) the elements needed for a network evaluation, d) the structure and organization of a network database, and e) the definition of strategies to maintain a road network.

One of the reasons that the course was well received is that the instructor arrived in Cape Verde some days before the course and, with the assistance of the staff of PIT (Programa de Infra-estrutura dos Transportes), prepared two case studies based on real data from Cape Verde, which were used during the course. The first case study referred to a project economic evaluation that evaluated a project (Sao Domingos - Assomada) in the route to the Tarrafal town, where the course was located, and that all participants visited. The second case study referred to a network economic evaluation that evaluated all the road network of the Santiago Island, defining the proper level of service of each road class.

The RED model has proven to be a good tool to be used in Cape Verde, particularly because most of its road network is composed of cobblestones, which are not modeled by the HDM models, and therefore, a judgement is needed to define the level of service of each road. Also the mountainous terrain of some of the islands are suited to be evaluated with the RED option to define the roughness and the speeds of all vehicles to characterize the level of service of the proposed project alternatives. During the course a preliminary version of a new version of RED (version 2.0) that is under development under the RMI program was used. The new features of version 2.0 have proven to be useful, particularly the graphical presentation of the results and the network analysis module.

For more information on the RED model you are kindly referred to Africa Transport Technical Note No. 18. The RED model version 2.0 is available on this website under Publications. Questions may be addressed to rarchando-callao@worldbank.org

Tanzania benefits from Contractor Development Mission and LTAP Program

With the support of the RMI and under the sponsorship of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) in the US Department of Transportation, a Contractor Development Mission was undertaken to Tanzania June 2-16, 2000. The purpose of the mission carried out by a team led by Samuel Carradine former executive Director of the National Association of Minority Contractors (NAMC) was to: study the capability and capacity of indigenous Tanzanian contractors; and based on these findings to develop and present an overview of intervention strategies related to contractor training, public policy, business development and financing requirements and strategies. A number of recommendations are under active consideration - earmarking of road fund revenues for specific contractor training and coordination activities - or are under implementation - a number of initiatives including information exchange and support between Tanzanian and US (Alabama) based contractor organization. A Tanzanian engineer has been seconded to the FHWA National Highway Institute to help modify transportation training materials to better address Sub-Saharan Africa issues and conditions. There is interest in extending the model and testing its applicability in other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, initially focusing on the SADC countries.

Allied to this effort the FHWA with the assistance of RMI is seeking to extend the concept of the Transportation Technology Transfer Center - which have been established in most states in the USA - to Sub-Saharan Africa. A center already exists in Tanzania while others are at an advanced stage of establishment in Malawi and Zimbabwe. The centers are expected to become focal points for training and dissemination of knowledge regarding road maintenance management, inter alia but limited to the use of technology to increase the effective usage of local contracting skills. As in the USA, the centers are conduits for a Local Technical Assistance program (LTAP) through which FHWA is providing technical and financial support. A delegation from Tanzania visited USA in July-August 2000 to find out more about LTAP and how this might contribute to the development of the road sector. The visit included participation in the LTAP National Conference held in Boise, Idaho.

If interested in further information from the user perspective, you are directed to the RMI Country Coordinator for Tanzania, Mr. Willy Lyatuu contactable at rmitz@raha.com. Further information about the LTAP and future assistance from the Federal Highway Administration should be directed to Al Logie, Technology Assistance Engineer to be contacted at: Alfred.Logie@Fhwa.Dot.Gov.

Pilot Survey on RMI Vision - Field work completed, report to be tabled

In response to concern expressed at the previous RMI Annual Coordinating Committee Meeting in December 1999 about the responsiveness of the program to emerging needs in the road sector in Sub-Saharan Africa, a pilot exercise has been carried out to obtain country stakeholders' views on the RMI vision and strategy, and of indicators of progress in implementation and impact. The objective of the exercise is to enable RMI to more effectively facilitate implementation of policy and institutional reforms and more appropriately monitor progress and achievements. A number of RMI member countries - Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe - were selected to take part in this exercise with a view to extending the process to the other countries at a later stage with the benefit of the lessons learned from the pilot exercise. A consulting team comprises Messrs. Mike Pinard and Severin Kaombwe has been appointed to carry out the exercise. Field work involving visits to the countries, extensive interviews with RMI stakeholders and completion of questionnaires and the preparation of joint aide memoires on each visit has been completed. It is anticipated that a final report will be produced - after incorporation of RMI Program and country coordinator comments on the draft version - by mid-April. It will be discussed as will the follow up action required at the 15^th RMI Annual Coordinating Committee Meeting in May.

For further information, kindly contact the RMI Team Leader via sbrushett@worldbank.org