Improved Rural Connectivity Project

The project development of the Improved Rural Connectivity Project for Zambia are to: (i) improve the Recipient’s rural road accessibility for communities in selected areas; (ii) strengthen institutional capacity for sustainable management of rural roads; and (iii) respond promptly and effectively to an Eligible Crisis or Emergency. There are three components for this project. The first component, improvement of feeder roads, will support the upgrading, rehabilitation and maintenance of priority feeder road infrastructure in six top ranked provinces i.e. Central, Eastern, Northern, Luapula, Southern and Muching a Provinces. It will finance about 4,300 km of feeder roads comprising mainly of roads improved to gravel wearing course standards.The Project would also finance road improvement to low cost seal standards where a ten‐year projected vehicular traffic would be in excess of 50 to 100 vehicles per day (VPD). The second component,institutional strengthening in the roads sector (US$20 million). It has two sub-component, (i) coordination and implementation support will reinforce the project coordination function, and support project implementation roles of the entities concerned. (ii) Strategic institutional capacity enhancements will include technical services, physical works, goods and materials for the purpose of institutional strategic capacity enhancements within the sector, and human resources development. The third component, contingent emergency response component will allow for rapid reallocation of project proceeds in the event of a natural or man-made disaster or crisis that has caused or is likely to imminently cause a major adverse economic and/or social impact.