2019 - World Bank - Financing Decentralized Road Maintenance

This document looks at the financing allocated to the maintenance of roads that have been decentralized to local administrations. A comparison is made between different countries in Latin America, Asia and the Pacific to show the different options that exist and how these have been implemented in different countries. The countries included in this document include very large countries and very small countries, countries with high road densities and countries with low road densities, relatively rich countries (with high GDP per capita) and relatively poor countries, highly decentralized countries and highly centralized countries. Although all these factors influence the way decentralized road maintenance is financed, the historical choices made in the countries also have a strong influence. Just because a particular option is applied in a certain type of country, does not necessarily mean that it is not suitable to other types of countries. This document presents the different options for financing the maintenance of decentralized roads, describing how these options are applied in different ways in each country and highlighting the advantages and challenges of each option.