The FINANCIAL — The World Bank (WB) Board of Executive Directors approved US$225 million in financing on November 12 to improve road sector management in Bolivia, as well as management of the Primary Road Network, particularly the Trinidad-Santa Cruz stretch. The Road Sector Capacity Development Project will facilitate the mobility of 3.5 million inhabitants: 2.6 million in Santa Cruz, 400,000 in Beni and 500,000 in other areas using this corridor.
“This project falls within the 2025 Patriotic Agenda of the Pluri-National State of Bolivia,” said the Minister for Public Works, Services and Housing, Milton Claros. “It seeks to improve asset management, including pavement rehabilitation activities, drainage, road safety issues, right of way management and routine management; all of this through a performance-based, lump sum package of contracts, called Rehabilitation and Standard Compliance Contracts.”
Specifically, 567 km of the Trinidad-Santa Cruz road will be rehabilitated, resurfaced and maintained for a total of US$215 million. The Bolivian Road Agency (ABC, in Spanish) will also receive US$10 million in financing for the development of a rehabilitation strategy for the primary road network, training and certification of technical personnel, support for contract management via a new methodology and the implementation of a comprehensive information and activity system to mitigate climate risks, according to the World Bank.
“Through this loan, the World Bank intends to improve the efficiency of Bolivia’s Primary Road Network, as this will reinvigorate economic activity by increasing trade from production to consumption areas, and even borders,” said Alberto Rodriguez, World Bank Director for Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela. “This project will support ABC in planning, acquiring and executing public works according to the highest value standards.”
Despite significant growth of the national road network, which has increased by around 70 percent since 1990, Bolivia still has one of the smallest, lowest quality networks in the region. Barely 10 percent of all roads are paved, and 50 percent of them are dirt roads. This project will operate in 6,000 of the 16,000 km of roads comprising the Primary Road Network.
The project will contribute to the attainment of results in the areas of sustained productive development, efficiency of the public sector, and access to basic services for human development, all fields where the World Bank has been working alongside Bolivia in recent years.
The implementation of this project will finalize in 2021. Funding will come from a US$59.05 million credit from the International Development Association (IDA), including a 25-year maturity period and a 5-year grace period; and a US$165.95 million loan from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), whose capital will be reimbursed in its entirety in July 2035.
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