Burund’s Nyakararo-Mwaro-Gitega (RN18) Road Improvement and Asphalting Project has received funding for its first phase.

The project, which concerns 30-kilometre-long Nyakararo-Mwaro-Kibumbu road, aims to help open up access to the country and boost regional trade. This objective would be achieved by facilitating the movement of goods and persons along the road thereby increasing trade with the rest of the country and with the sub-region.

Under Burundi Vision 2025, the government designed and implemented an Infrastructure Action Plan (2010-2015) which gave rise to the Road Network Improvement Programme aimed at supporting the productive sectors of the economy. The approved intervention is therefore consistent with the national transport infrastructure improvement policy, especially for highly-populated regions with high economic potential.

The project is also consistent with the second-generation Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy Framework (GPRSF II), which focuses on transformation of the Burundian economy to generate sustained and job-creating growth.

The main beneficiaries of the road project are farmers who experience difficulties in procuring inputs and in marketing their produce due to the poor state of the roads. It will also have a positive impact on women and young people by improving their access to socio-economic infrastructure and creating new initiatives.

Industrialists’, loggers’ and transporters’ operating and logistical costs will be significantly reduced thanks to the improvement and asphalting of the main road and rehabilitation of the rural roads.

In addition, the road will serve as a strategic economic link connecting Bujumbura to the central, northern and eastern regions of the country. It will also serve as an alternative road to the current central corridor linking Bujumbura to the Port of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.

The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank has approved a $29.49 million grant to help finance the first phase of the project. The grant accounts for 95% of the project’s total cost estimated at $31.04 million.