Partnership Forum on Roads

Preparing Somalias Future: Goals for 2015 Second Istanbul Conference, Turkey Partnership Forum on 31 May2012 10.30 am to 3.00 pm Conference Paper on Roads

CONFERENCE PAPER FOR THE PARTNERSHIP FORUM ON ROADS 31st May 2012, 10.30 am to 15.00 Objective: The Partnership Forum on Roads has been assembled to deliberate and commit to a sustainable road sector strategy for Somalia. A consolidated and strengthened road sector aligns with broader ambitions of employment-led economic growth, accelerated trade, reinforced livelihoods, strengthened resilience and political stability. Outcome and Deliverables:
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All participants, on behalf of their constituencies, commit to a time-bound strategy for road sector development - Goals for 2015. The plan is to consider: Strengthening/establishing autonomous road agencies with defined roles and responsibilities. Strengthening/establishing road sector policy, legislation, regulation, maintenance and financial management procedures. Formalising/executing a Transport Master Plan(s) to articulate the sectors long-term goals and outline a network plan for investment prioritisation. Improving/institutionalising the conduct of road inventories. Instilling/reinforcing road design standards, specifications and quality assurance mechanisms. Applying/supporting employment intensive and local resource based approaches to road construction and maintenance. Creating/enhancing the conditions for private investment and public-private partnership. Engaging private sector investment for the public interest. Building local private sector capacity to undertake civil works contracts.

Agenda:
Time 10.30-11.00 11.00-11.45 11.45-12.30 12.30-13.30 13.30-14.30 14.30 15.00 15.00 Session Introductory Speeches: The status of the road sector in Somalia Presentation of the road sector conference paper Plenary Discussion Plenary: Discussion/endorsement of priorities: Rational Allocation of Investment Resources Balanced Investment Lunch Break Plenary: Discussion/endorsement of priorities: Private Sector Opportunities Assessing & Managing Project Risks Improving Road Sector Governance Plenary: Discussion/endorsement of: Recommendations The way forward Adjourn 1

1. Background and Context

Approximately 80% of Somalias 22000km road network is in state of serious fragility or near collapse. Fundamental to any internal movement, the inadequacy of this transport system restricts access to basic services (and humanitarian operations), stifles domestic, regional and international enterprise and imposes a ceiling on employment and economic growth. The failing condition of over 90% of the 19200 km secondary and tertiary road network further isolates towns, villages and market centres and encumbers the movement of people and goods for trade and commerce. Indispensible to social and economic progress, roads provide one of the few sectors which can impel employment-led economic growth, accelerate trade, elevate livelihoods, support resilience, unite regions and encourage stability trade for peace and prosperity. Investment in Somalias road network is therefore a clear and immediate priority for enabling equitable development, building reconciliation and granting Somalis the ability to support themselves.

2. Proposed Strategy for Roads

The strategy presented here incorporates contributions from UN agencies, international donors, the World Bank, Somali authorities, private sector contractors and community based organisations. The core elements of the strategy are as follows: a) Rational Allocation of Investment Resources: Projects will be rationalised and prioritised according to their contribution to connectivity and accessibility, their social and economic returns on investment and coordination with wider spatial and regional planning. b) Balanced Investment: Resources will be prioritised to links in the regional road network which ensure balanced development. c) Private Sector Opportunities: Private sector cooperation needs to work in the public interest. Existing barriers to entry for private operators need to be identified and potential solutions examined. The capacity of local contractors to undertake civil works should be improved. d) Assessing & Managing Project Risks: The basic conditions for investment need securing. Mitigating the security risk, strengthening the regulatory environment and heightening the transparency of construction and financial management procedures will create a more conducive setting for investment. e) Improve Road-Sector Governance: Institutional approaches to road sector policy, planning, financing, administration and management need consolidating/strengthening.

3. General Programmatic Priorities for Roads

a) Rational Allocation of Investment Resources Road construction and rehabilitation needs to be rationalised and prioritised according to; i. Connectivity and Accessibility;

A multi level road hierarchy for network planning and management is required. Strengthened interconnectivity between provincial, district, urban and rural productive centres needs to form the basis of future road planning. Road authorities need to undertake/advance road and bridge inventories (appraising surface conditions, road widths, culverts etc.) to determine traffic demand (routes) and pre-plan construction, rehabilitation and maintenance against cost estimates. Transport routes need to capitalise on Somalias location as an essential transit corridor for landlocked countries to international markets. Road planning needs to facilitate greater inter-regional support, connectivity and integration. ii. The Social and Economic Return on Investment;

Roads should be built according to an explicit social and economic purpose/objective. Roads need to connect national and international markets to zones of production and consumption. Preference should be given to routes which facilitate marketing of commodities by ensuring reliable, inexpensive delivery if inputs and timely marketing of production. The price of transport (vehicle operating and maintenance costs) is excessive relative to income (and export values) and needs suppressing through superior road design standards. Roads need to create immediate jobs and enable longer term employment in other sectors. The relative merits of labour-based construction vs. machinery depend on road type/ design/purpose and the availability of labour/equipment/raw materials. Road systems need to assist people reach employment, utilise basic services, participate in schooling, seek out skills development and obtain the necessary items to support their lives without excessive time, financial and physical burden. As the main transporters in rural life, women and girls are constrained and isolated by Somalias decaying road infrastructure. Investments need to curb female exposure to the physical hardship, security risks and financial expense of road use. Wherever feasible, road works should be labour intensive, engage local communities and endorse the equal participation of women, disadvantaged tribal groupings and other marginalised communities. Roads need to sponsor the ability to repatriate the internally displaced through immediate employment creation (road building and creating rural access) and improving their resilience (emergency relief, direct employment and longer-term trade). Where repatriation is unworkable, access roads should integrate IDP settlements into mainstream society and offer

access to social services. Further gender disaggregated research is needed on access to safe roads from IDP camps. Climate change warrants greater utility of roads and ancillary civil works for water and soil conservation. Through productive drainage, roads can sponsor environmental recovery, food security, additional income earning opportunities and resilience to sudden onset emergencies. Improved roads can increase the ability to police routes used for illegal migration, the trade of illicit goods (e.g. khat and firearms) and roadside banditry. New road construction can manipulate land values, incite land contestations, demand compulsory acquisition, displace adjacent communities, aggravate tribal fractions, incentivize encourage corruption and provoke conflict. Roads capable of peace building and reconciliation need to be identified through wide community and stakeholder consultation on the basis of the Do No Harm principles. iii. Coordination with Spatial and Regional Planning

Road delivery should be directed by a 5-10 year Transport Master Plan. Network planning should secure the mobility and accessibility of markets, settlements, urban centres, ports and airports according to forecast growth. To corroborate these trends and evaluate the impact of investment - social, economic, environmental and technical feasibility studies need to be performed. For instance, IGAD intends to commission a feasibility study of the BerberaTogochale road.

b) Balanced Investment To ensure balanced development, resources need to be spent on upgrading and rehabilitating secondary, tertiary and vicinal roads. Secondary roads need reinforcing to provide access to high-priority economic growth poles agricultural areas, areas of industrial and natural resource development and access to ports and border crossings. Tertiary and vicinal roads need strengthening to expand rural accessibility, increase marketable production, extend the range of a good and broaden access to social services. Core market centres (in livestock, farming, fishing, industry and commerce) detached from the primary network due to continued road deterioration need to be reconnected through rehabilitation and spot maintenance. If left unchecked by the relevant authorities, precedence of primary roads will bypass important intermediate towns and settlements, stifle their development, promote primacy of core urban centres and create uneven growth.

c) Private Sector Opportunities There is a need, prior to the actual development of projects, to clarify the ultimate objectives for private sector road development. Private sector cooperation needs to work in the public interest through strong accountability mechanisms and clear contractual arrangements. 4

Private sector interests should be maintained without compromising ecological integrity or leaking domestic economic returns. Establishing investment guarantees needs to be discussed as a means of accelerating private infrastructure development. The barriers to entry for private operators (e.g. procurement methods) need identification and potential solutions examined. Local capacity to execute civil works requires enhancement (i.e. training of small-scale contractors to undertake routine construction and maintenance contracts). Private sector engagement should be on the basis of public procurement best practice principles, essentially: open, transparent and competitive tendering processes, using national procurement systems where these exist and are sufficiently robust to deliver the best practice. In the absence of these systems, alternative approaches that deliver international procurement best practice need to be pursued, along with a programme to develop domestic procurement capacity.

d) Assessing & Managing Project Risks Basic conditions need establishing to appease any investor apprehension and incentivise further investment. Mitigating the security risk, strengthening the regulatory environment and heightening the transparency of construction and financial management procedures will create a setting more conducive to private investment and public-private partnership. Infrastructure funds, co-funding contributions from respective Somali authorities and assistance from the Joint Financial Management Board (JFMB) need consideration. Ensuring local ownership of road assets encourages preservation of new facilities and community mobilisation in maintenance tasks.

e) Improving Road Sector Governance

State/regional/local institutional capacity for road policy, planning, financing, administration and management needs strengthening to ensure sustainability of capital investments. Such institutional building needs to draw on the lessons learned from the establishment of road authorities and road funds in Somaliland, Puntland and countries such as Ethiopia and Kenya. Somali road authorities need to be the custodians of internationally aligned road safety, design, policy, planning, administration and management standards. Data collection, information management and network maintenance planning systems need implementing. This covers comprehensive road inventories and regular condition surveys. Existing procedures in Somaliland and Puntland need building upon. Road works and administration need to be planned and implemented so as to preserve the investment and reduce the total life-cycle cost of rehabilitation, maintenance and operation. Road operations and maintenance requires early programming, budgeting and swift implementation so that roads do not fail before their design life (according to agreed road standards).

Financial resources need to be quickly and sufficiently available to finance programmed civil works. Delayed maintenance leads to accelerated degradation of road conditions and disproportionately higher costs for restoring roads to acceptable conditions. Table 1 presents indicative low-volume road construction and maintenance costs in Somaliland & Puntland. Procurement of consulting services and civil works need to be responsive so that interventions are executed on time, within budget, to agreed standards and within locally accountable frameworks. Effective contract management needs to ensure that quality services are delivered as specified and within budget. Local contractors need greater technical and financial capacity in order to execute the quantity and quality of civil works. Any decentralisation of existing road authorities should reflect the phased devolution of responsibilities recommended in recent road sector studies of Puntland and Somaliland. The lessons documented here should advise the establishment of an equivalent authority in the South.

Table 1: Indicative Construction & Maintenance Costs Somaliland & Puntland Source: SRA (2012). PHA (2012). Construction Costs (US$). Includes basic drainage. No bridges/culverts/drifts. Subject to geological/hydrological/topographical variations. Haulage: 10km Gravel road (low volume) 1000m x 6m x 0.3m US$ 20-35,000 Tarmac road (bitumen, low volume sealed) 1000m x 6m x 0.1m US$ 95-125,000 Maintenance Costs (US$) Tarmac roads - routine & recurrent maintenance U$ 3,500/km Tarmac roads - periodic maintenance U$ 5,500/km Gravel roads - spot improvement U$ 1,500/km Gravel roads - routine & recurrent maintenance U$ 2,500/km Gravel roads - periodic maintenance U$ 3,500/km References United Nations and World Bank (2006). Somalia Joint Needs Assessment. Infrastructure Cluster Report. United Nations and World Bank (2006). Somalia Joint Needs Assessment. Volume 2 - South Central Somalia. United Nations and World Bank (2007). Somalia Joint Needs Assessment. Volume 3 - Puntland. United Nations and World Bank (2007). Somalia Joint Needs Assessment. Volume 4 - Somaliland. United Nations and World Bank (2008). Somalia Joint Needs Assessment. Volume 1 - Reconstruction and Development Programme Overall Synthesis Report. United Nations Joint Programme for Local Governance and Decentralised Service Delivery (2011). Ministry of Public Works, Housing & Transport, Puntland Institutional Capacity Assessment. United Nations Joint Programme for Local Governance & Decentralised Service Delivery (2012). Road Sector Study, Puntland. United Nations Joint Programme of Local Governance & Decentralised Service Delivery (2012). Road Sector Study, Somaliland. 6