Nicaragua: Improving and Maintaining Nicaragua's Roads

Published: Wed, 09 Sep 2009 18:22:38 GMT

Nicaragua’s poor road infrastructure has long hindered access of farmers to markets and created a bottle-neck for neighboring countries to the north (Honduras) and south (Costa Rica). Hurricane Mitch in 1998 also had a devastating effect on the country’s roads and trade links with the rest of Central America.


The Third Road Rehabilitation and Maintenance project is one of a series of projects aimed at rehabilitating highways, improving the secondary road network, stabilizing rural roads, consolidating road maintenance and boosting participation of the private sector. The project continued the innovative use of cement blocks, introduced in a previous project, as a cost-effective, environmentally-sound alternative to asphalt, that generates significant employment for unskilled laborers.


About 3 million inhabitants benefited from the rehabilitation of the Managua-Izapa and Muhan – El Rama highways. Over 150 km of roads were improved, resulting in lower vehicle operation costs.

Highlights:
- Rehabilitation or construction of approximately 287 km of rural roads, of which 204 km were paved using hexagonal cement blocks, with the remaining 83 km improved by means of leveling and grading of roads in selected rural areas.

- Improvements had a direct impact on rural transport services: fares became cheaper and the number of public transport vehicles using the roads increased.

- Road works generated employment in 12 departments and 24 municipalities with 23,205 direct and 8,126 indirect jobs. Direct beneficiaries included another 298,739 inhabitants living along these improved roads.

- 387 km of roads received routine maintenance from the newly created Road Maintenance Fund (FOMAV) and the Road Conservation Directorate at the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure (MTI).

- Promoted the creation of 30 microenterprises, trained by FOMAV and later given routine maintenance contracts for secondary roads totaling 2,164 km.

- Private sector participation was encouraged. Rehabilitation works were implemented by international companies, including design, supervision and construction. Rural road stabilization was carried out by national companies who relied for the first time on construction crews assembled by local unemployed workers.

- Anecdotal evidence suggests that paving roads (for example Susucayán – El Jícaro) has made transporting staple foods to market much easier, breathing life into agricultural sector microenterprises, for whose operations they are a source of manual labor.

- The periodic road maintenance program, directly managed by FOMAV and MIT, helped strengthen these institutions and train young Nicaraguan professionals in the transport sector. This expertise will help ensure the sustainability of the overall road system in the future.


US$ 75 million credit from IDA, complemented with US$ 7.1 million co-financing from the Government of Nicaragua.


Project continuity has been assured with the approval in 2006 of a Fourth Road Rehabilitation and Maintenance Project (US$ 60 million) and an upcoming Fifth project envisaged in the World Bank’s Country Partnership Strategy for Nicaragua.


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