The Road Management and Rural Road Improvement Programme is being funded under the 11th European Union Development Fund (EDF) in partnership with the Caribbean Development Bank.
The project will be carried out through the Ministry of Transport and Works and The Roads Bridges and General Services Authority (BRAGSA), and will construct over 5 kilometers of existing village or feeder roads with drainage and slope protection.
At the launch of the project on Monday March 27, at Sunset Shores, Vice President of Operations at the Caribbean Development Bank, Isaac Solomon noted that there has been significant impact on the road network of St. Vincent and the Grenadines through natural disasters associated with climate change, therefore emphasis will be placed on road maintenance and drainage.
“This highlights the need for climate resilient roads, particularly in rural areas…to facilitate greater rural economic activity…(and) strengthening the country’s road management and maintenance programme,” Solomon explained.
The European Union representative, Livia Eliasova said though the project has had some delays due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the 2021 volcanic eruption, the European Union is grateful that the project can now commence and looks forward to further collaborating with the Government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
Delivering the feature address, Prime minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves, explained that the vagaries of climate change have impacted heavily on the development of SVG, and he is pleased to see the European community providing support for climate change related issues.
Dr. Gonsalves admitted that a significant portion of rural roads are in need of repair because of the impact of climate change.
“We have about 400 miles of secondary roads, village roads, a lot of them, maybe close to 50 per cent of them are in a terrible condition because of excessive rainfall and constant eating away at the sides of the road…and if I take the whole budget of SVG, I still can’t do all the roads because we are dealing with issues of size and a lot of these problems are problems which come to us through the climate change issues from outside.”
In addition to this project, Budget 2023 has allocated 120 million dollars over the next three (3) years for the National Road Rehabilitation project.