Scaling Up Private Sector Participation in Road Asset Management in Sub-Saharan Africa
Private sector financing in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has been mostly limited to a mix of green- and brownfield road projects, mainly in urban areas. The scale of these projects has been limited: it is estimated that private financing for the upgrade and maintenance of road networks accounts for less than 10 percent of global road financing needs in emerging markets and even less in SSA. This lack of private funding has left local governments with the task of mobilizing enough money to carry out road networks preservation and expansion. This report explores how intermediary public payment agents known as Road Funds (RFs) could be reformed to substantially increase the amount of public and private funds flowing towards the maintenance and/or upgrade of the core road networks of SSA countries.