OVERVIEW

Since 2002, USAID has invested more than $2 billion to support the development of Afghanistan’s road network.  As one of Afghanistan’s major development partners, USAID is moving to phase-out investments in road construction and developing the Afghan government’s capacity to perform infrastructure operations and maintenance (O&M).  The Road Sector Sustainability Program (RSSP) is designed to assist the government of Afghanistan make the transition through restructuring and reform to self-sustainability in the roads O&M sector.

The project has four integrated components: 1) Emergency Road Repair, 2) Technical Assistance (TA), Training and Capacity Building, and 4) Roads O&M assistance to the Ministry of Public Works (MoPW) through the Afghanistan Infrastructure Trust Fund (AITF).

Afghanistan’s 42,000 kilometers of roads provide significant socio-economic benefits and opportunities to the Afghan population and are catalytic to the growth and sustainability of the country’s Gross Domestic Product The planning, building, managing and maintaining of this critical infrastructure is essential to Afghanistan’s continued economic growth and integration into the regional economy.

CURRENT ACTIVITIES

• Provide on-call, back up services for clearing roads and repairing damage caused by natural disasters such as mud slides, floods and avalanches.
• Engage contractors with heavy equipment and trained personnel ready to respond to the emergency in the northern and eastern regions of Afghanistan.
• Response to emergency calls: the Provincial Directorate of Public Work (DoPW) crews should be able to clear the roads and make repairs in the majority of emergencies. However, in situations in which a major highway or critical clearing effort is necessary, and the Provincial highway crews require additional road emergency O&M support, USAID is contacted on an as-needed basis to assign one of its contractors to mobilized to the emergency site.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

• Provided critical Roads O&M support to MoPW to maintain traffic flow at all times.
• Trained MoPW and Provincial DoPW road maintenance crews to respond to emergency O&M natural disasters.
• Provided successful emergency O&M support to nine affected roads in the north and the east regions of the country, the activities were ranging from $2,000 to $330,000 depending on the damage magnitude of the roadway.