Recent Trends in Road Management and Financing in Latin America

Abstract

Increasing attention has been paid since the early 1990s to improving the quality of road networks in Latin America. The region has been broadly impacted by the new thinking on what constitutes good road management which gained currency at that time. The foundations of a regional approach towards implementing reforms were created under the PROVIAL program and a number of countries received advice and technical assistance. Since then varied progress has been made along five main dimensions: increasing funding for road conservation; reforming existing road management institutions; extending private sector participation; introducing new forms of contracting; and decentralizing road management. Some measurable progress has been made on network quality. Expenditure on roads is however less than it needs to be, shortfalls in public resources only partially offset by increased private sector flows, and there has been no clear shift from investment to maintenance. Countries have not generally followed PROVIAL recommendations on road user based funding for maintenance. Greater success has been achieved in implementing the recommendations on contracting with considerable progress in the employment of performance-based contracting and the development of a range of options from CREMA style long term concessions to micro-enterprises for routine maintenance. A challenge will be pursue decentralization more actively as a means to address lagging network quality at sub-national level. For the covering abstract see ITRD E139491.