Geographic Focus: Republic of Armenia, Azerbaijan Republic, Georgia, Republic of Kazakhstan, Kyrghyz Republic, Republic of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Republic of Uzbekistan

Project Budget: EURO 2,000,000

Contractor : KOCKS CONSULT GmbH

Implementation timetable: December 1995 through December 1997.

Background and Objectives. Limited funds are available for road maintenance in each of the participating states and it is important that they are directed towards works which yield maximum benefit. In that light, this project was : (i) to introduce Regional road maintenance authorities to the latest EU pavement management techniques; (ii) to promote a reduction in road maintenance backlogs which have arisen during recent years, by examining the problems of financing maintenance activities; (iii) to re-invigorate the activities of the regional road maintenance authorities and technical institutions and to contribute to their long term survival; and (iv) to train local specialists in the techniques employed, as a prime objective.

Key Issues and Achievements. The project contains a strong economic and financial analysis component which is most important, as the participating States have never used rigorous economic principles to study the links between appropriate national expenditure and roads maintenance. IFIs require the implementation of PMS to accompany any investment by them in roads infrastructure, as sometime in the future the participating States will have to fund the sector entirely from their own resources. The project provided the hardware, software and training to implement modern EU systems for road pavement and bridge maintenance management decision support. Several synergies with investment projects were developed in extensions. Meanwhile, negotiations and disbursement of IFI loans based on the project activities are proceeding well.

A project extension provided for: (i) assistance to the Armenian Department of Highways, to privatise roads maintenance contracts in conjunction with a World Bank loan to the roads sector; (ii) the preparation of feasibility studies on road sections in Georgia to increase the resources of a present World Bank emergency support package to the transport sector;
(iii) detailed design and contract documents preparing an EBRD loan to rehabilitate the Ashgabat-Mary road in Turkmenistan; and (iv) additional training and equipment for the PMS.