An estimated 36 percent of Nepal’s 24 million people live at least a two-hours' walk from the nearest all-season road, and 15 out of 75 district headquarters are not connected by road. Nepal’s total road network density and quality are among the lowest in the region. 60 percent of the main road network and almost all rural roads are dry-season tracks that cannot be operated during the rainy season. The management of rural roads has been devolved to local government bodies, including the District Development Committees (DDC), in accordance with Nepal’s decentralization policy for local infrastructure management. However, DDCs have weak institutional and financial capacity to assume full responsibility for the management of rural roads, and particularly pay little attention to objective planning and maintenance and operation of roads.
- Routine maintenance for 1,000 km of roads, periodic maintenance of 240 km of roads, rehabilitation of 100 km of roads, rehabilitation and spot improvement of 75 km of major trails using small labor-based contractors or road user groups in the project areas.
- Technical assistance for management support, monitoring and evaluation, and preparation of a follow-up project.
Residents of eight districts of Nepal now use all-season, year-round, road access to economic centers and social services. They enjoy significantly reduced travel time for trips to schools (60 percent less time than before), health services (45 percent less), and local shops (70 percent less).
Highlights:
- The project has helped in eliminating the prolonged closures and isolation of beneficiary rural communities during the monsoon rainy season.
- Traveling outside of villages to nearby towns has become easier and a routine affair for many people, who hitherto did not like to go out of their villages because they could not return on the same day.
- The travel time reduction was achieved primarily due to a shift in modes of transport from mainly walking to motorized transport, such as bus and jeep services.
- Enrollment of girls in secondary schools and colleges has increased.
- The cost of consumption products such as salt, oil, and kerosene has gone down by 30 to 50 percent because of the reduction in transportation cost.
- The project has supported the development of a long-term priority planning for rural access improvement and development that has now been established in 56 (out of 75) districts of Nepal.
- Total project cost was US$5.7 million. IDA contributed US$5 million, and the Government of Nepal US$1 million.
- IDA played a lead role in translating government’s decentralization policy into an implementation program through the Learning and Innovation credit, which was one of the first donor-supported projects to entrust project implementation responsibilities within District Development Committees. As a result of this project, decentralized support for rural roads from development partners has been mainstreamed.
- Providing of all-season road access is now part of the government’s rural infrastructure development strategy, which has developed a Sector Investment Program and Business Plan to attract support from development partners for this sector.
- IDA’s financial support to local bodies helped the Government of Nepal to deepen its decentralization policy.
-The project has been scaled up in a larger program supported by IDA and other development partners. The IDA support is provided through the ongoing Rural Access Improvement and Decentralization project (approved in June 2005; US$32 million IDA Grant), which is being implemented in 20 districts.
- In addition, the Asian Development Bank, the Swiss Agency for International Cooperation and the United Kingdom Department for International Development are providing rural road investments in other districts following similar implementation arrangement used under RIP.
- The new Rural Access Improvement and Decentralization Project has developed a baseline data on rural access among all districts in Nepal, and is supporting DOLIDAR and the National Planning Commission to monitor the accessibility indicators.
RSS