Cambodia Community self-help road repairs
It is an unfortunate reality that rural communities are often near the end of the list for allocation of scarce public resources for developing or maintaining their rural roads. However, there are numerous instances of communities helping themselves to improve their local transport infrastructure. Often, key inputs provided free or at reduced cost, such as basic technical expertise, knowledge, provision of materials or hand tools can facilitate this process. This webpage provides some examples of Community initiatives to improve or sustain their road access.
India
Paved village bitumen surfaced roads 3.05m wide were constructed with community participation. The Community was fully consulted in the planning process. The Community provided labour and equipment was hired in for earthworks, a contractor provided compaction. Maintenance was organised by the community with technical help and quality assurance. Construction & maintenance were achieved at lower cost.
Vietnam
In the past, in some communities, when a girl was married to a boy from another village, then the boy’s family had to pay 500 to 1,000 pieces of fired clay brick to the girl’s village for community infrastructure. This kind of traditional custom existed in many communities before 1945 but has now lapsed. Apart from the bricks contributed by the groom’s family, the recipient village people paid or arranged for the other materials such as lime and sand and the hire of a construction team to build the section of road.
India
The Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY), a flagship programme of the Government of India, was launched in December 2000, with the objective of providing connectivity, through good all-weather roads, to all unconnected habitations, with a population of more than 500 persons. The programme envisaged community participation at various stages of its implementation. During the process of preparation of the District Rural Road Plan (DRRP), the Village Panchayat, Gram Sabha and intermediate Panchayats are consulted. The DRRP is approved by the District Panchayat after scrutiny by the District Planning Committee. The process of identification of core network is also
started in consultation with Village Panchayat and intermediate Panchayat and finally approved by District Panchayat. A comprehensive new connectivity priority list is prepared on the basis of the core network and annual proposals for the programme are finalized by the District Panchayat on the basis of this list. With a view to ensure participation of the local community in the process of
selection of alignment of road, a transect walk is organized in which the representatives of village panchayat, project affected citizens, engineering, forest and revenue officials take part.
With a view to ensuring transparency and citizen involvement in the process of execution of road works, details of work are provided to the citizens through a Citizen Information Board displayed at every work site. Details of work such as estimated cost, length, name of contractor and executing agency, date of start and end of work etc are given on these boards in local language. Information about various material and quantities involved in every layer of road work are also given in local language and in an understandable format.
Vietnam
The rural road network extends to approximately 190,000km, 134,000km of which are Commune roads. The latter are typically earth/gravel surface (with only 10% paved). Annual rainfall ranges between 1.5 and 4 metres/year. There was no central maintenance budget and Communes themselves were responsible for these roads. They were maintained through compulsory labour scheme by which every adult contributed 10 days/person/year to community work. This was usually prioritised on road maintenance.
Sweden
Private ownership and management of low volume roads is often assumed to be an unviable option. The experience of Sweden, where sixty thousand private road associations own and manage 140,000 kilometres of road (one third of the country’s network) contradicts this assumption.
UK
Many minor roads in the UK are ‘unadopted’ and therefore do not qualify for public funding for upgrading or maintenance. One example is the road on which Rob Petts lived for some 30 years. The 3.5 metre wide bitumen surfaced dressed road was maintained by residents’ financial contributions and voluntary professional services of the residence for technical, administrative and accounting roles. Periodic surface dressing re-sealing was achieved about every 8 years for an annual equivalent cost of about US$5,000/km; very substantially below normal public works management and implementation costs.
Kenya
Harambee is a Kenyan tradition of community self-help events, e.g. fundraising or development activities. The word means “all pull together” in Swahili, and is the official motto of Kenya, appearing on its coat of arms. The word was assimilated into the Swahili language from Hindi at the time of the building of the Uganda Railway from Mombasa to Kampala. Indian labourers used the phrase “har har Ambey”, or, “hail Ambey”–an exhortation to Amba, the Hindu Goddess – when performing difficult tasks that often required more than one person to be involved, such as lifting heavy loads.
