Lessons Learned from PPIAF Activities: Highways Maintenance PPPs

In many developing countries, roads and highways are the dominant mode of transport. Road-based transport typically accounts for more than 80% of the distance travelled by individuals and more than 50% of that travelled by goods. Consequently, a country‟s road assets form a crucial backbone to any economy by seamlessly linking up people and goods to their respective markets, which in turn improves economic efficiency and reduces poverty. However, the condition of these assets is too often substandard and not fit-for-purpose due to a lack of routine and heavy maintenance programs which in turn significantly reduces the service quality of the highway and in some cases makes key routes un-passable, unsafe and prone to weather-related damage (e.g. flooding). Increasingly governments are recognizing the role that highways maintenance public-private partnerships (PPPs) can play in instilling contractual discipline and private sector risk transfer into the crucial tasks of highway rehabilitation and maintenance.