BY SOLOMON DIBABA
A couple of days back, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and higher officials of the country inaugurate the startup of various road network linking Bako Town to Horo Guduru and Kelem Wollega zones linking Dembi Dollo Town with Muggi Town.
Upon completion, these roads connect the districts in the zones with other regions of the country thus improving the transport and logistics capacity in that part of the country.
For instance, the 50 kms asphalt road connecting Dembi Dollo to Muggi Town of Anfilo Woreda connects the zone with a major coffee growing and marketing hub in the western part of the country. Besides the road will be part of the road connection between Gambella region and Oromia.
The importance of such roads also lies in the fact that they touch upon the livelihood of millions of people in the country by promoting rural economic interdependence.
In many rural settings of the country, due to lack of standard rural roads, mothers who were expected to deliver under the supervision of medical professionals were subjected to sudden deaths or miscarriage.
In addition, the Ethiopian government has recently launched a solar energy project that can benefit populations in 25 woredas of the country financed by the African Development Bank. This indicates that the government is focusing on the development
of rural infrastructural facilities across the country. This project is developed in line with Ethiopia’s green economy strategy which stipulates the development of clean and renewable energy resources for rural Ethiopia.
The rural areas of Ethiopia are not only the sources of the national wealth but also engage more than 85 percent of the population into the mainstay of the Ethiopian economy, agriculture.
The degree of the national capacity to tap these resources, to a greater depends upon the logistics support in the economy which invariably depends upon promoting infrastructures in the outback areas of the country with higher agricultural productivity.
I recall that most of the districts in the above mentioned zones lack perennial roads networks retarding the pace of accessibility to such services such as rural health facilities and access to commercial goods and commodities needed by the rural population as well as swift transport for delivering agricultural products to nearby towns and cities in the country.
Roads, particularly asphalt roads are capital intensive undertakings that cannot be developed through local financial resources. In this context the country heavily relies on international financial sources to finance such infrastructural facilities.
In countries like Ethiopia, all weather roads including asphalt roads are critical and relatively affordable compared to other transport infrastructural facilities.
However, perennial roads are expensive and their construction needs to prioritize the economic potentials of the areas connected by these roads.
Some citizens try to connect infrastructure development with ethnic politics and try to incite disenchantment between the government and citizens of a particular region, zone or woreda. Advocating for economic equity is acceptable but using political prerogatives to justify some ethnic conflicts does not hold water.
Developing rural infrastructural facilities have a greater bearing on the entire economic developments of the country primarily because almost all the resources needed for the development of the country are located in the rural areas.
Rural infrastructures effectively facilitate economic integration between the woredas, zones and regions of the country and will have a greater valued added inputs to regional integration in the Horn of Africa.
Agricultural development, health, education, trade between various areas of the country heavily depend on road, air, railway transport, telecommunication and related infrastructural facilities which constitute major prerequisites for the sustained development of the country.
Rural infrastructures development in Ethiopia will help to strengthen the stability, peace and security of the country by promoting better communication between communities with multiple interests but who are interested to cooperate on various socio-economic issues for mutual benefit.
Among other things, developing the logistics in rural areas will further promote gender related needs of women to have access to various health facilities, technical and vocational education to enhance their constructive role in social development.
At times of manmade and natural disasters, networks of rural infrastructures will ease the delivery of emergency relief supplies to affected areas in much faster pace.
With the rapid growth of agro-industrial complexes across the country, rural infrastructures serve as conveyor belts to deliver raw materials needed for agro processing. Rural areas covered by network of perennial roads certainly contribute to the transformation of the economy from agriculture led to industry.
Infrastructure facilities related to agro-industries and agro industrial parks are critical for the development of the sector For instance, agricultural cooperatives established in various parts of the country face various difficulties related to marketing their produces simply because they lack roads and related facilities that could help them to generate income.
This is a problem that is widely voiced by hundreds of agricultural cooperatives in the country with particular reference to vegetables and fruits which could easily be spoiled.
The development of tourist industry in Ethiopia functionally depends upon the logistics and infrastructural development particularly in the major tourist attraction centers in the northern and southern part of the country. Although Ethiopia has rich tourist attraction heritage sites some of which are registered at UNESCO, poor infrastructure has always been a major hurdle to the development of the sector. Although a lot have been said and promised to make improvements in the sector, there still far more to be desired.
Look at the road network in Lalibela town. Although some improvements have been made over time, there is indeed more to be accomplished.
However, the expansion of rural infrastructure facilities face several challenges that could be resolved over time and through viable infrastructure policy priorities. Financing such projects is indeed a major challenge that the government subsequently tries to resolve through access to loans from international financial magnets.
In building rural infrastructure in many cases quality is compromised making the rehabilitation of such structures very expensive. Besides, infrastructural projects both in rural and urban areas in the country are not completed on time due to various reasons.
This among other things indicates lack of proper monitoring and evaluation to ensure that the projects are completed in line with the standards set for their completion.
In a number of rural areas of the country, the construction of rural roads that were budgeted from the scares financial resources of the country were time and again aborted due to occasional ethic based conflicts in the country.
Nonetheless, the construction of such rural infrastructure facilities demands conducting environmental impact assessment to ensure that infrastructure projects need not affect the ecosystem of the districts they bisect.
Many of these rural roads are constructed and supervised by regional road transport bureaus which have limited capacity both on engineering capacity and monitoring of their progress.
In many cases contracts given to local construction companies are annulled and offered to other construction companies causing unnecessary delays on completion of the roads.
The other challenge is related to ownership of infrastructures built by huge amount of fund. In many rural areas, tampering with electric power structures and telephone cables and networks have become a common mode of theft incurring huge amount of financial loss to the concerned government agencies. These structures that are built for communities who are expected to take care of them and protect them from any damage.
At this point, it is regrettable that a number of rural infrastructure networks have been destroyed due to sporadic ethnic conflicts that flared up in the country over the last four years. TPLF atrocities in different zones of the region did not spare rural and urban infrastructures that were built for the benefit of the peoples of Tigray.
Schools, hospitals, roads and bridges were demolished and public properties at the cost of billions of Birr were destroyed requiring huge amount of rehabilitation fund to be used again.
Now, what is to be done to resolve the above mentioned challenges? Just to mention few of them. I think it is very important to further build the capacity of regional bureaus of road construction and also provide support and assistance for local contractors by carefully identifying their capacity and shortfalls even before they start to engage in bids regarding rural roads construction.
On the other hand, regular and rigorous monitoring of the activities of contractors and evaluating their performances in mid-term and final levels is very important.
As these projects are owned by communities, they need to participate in ensuring timely completion of the road projects with support from local administrative bodies.
Over the next ten years the government is expected to expand the development of all-weather rural roads and other infrastructural facilities.
The Ethiopian Herald February 23/2021
