$245m has been approved for Ethiopia by the World Bank for supporting the development of the Addis Ababa road network.

The project, which is being carried out by the Ethiopian Roads Authority (ERA), will build, maintain and improve national roads in Ethiopia.

The fourth-phase credit for the programme will finance the construction of three roads and strengthen and build the ERA institutional capacity as well as identify maintenance needs and required funding arrangements for the coming five to ten years.

The three roads to be invested in are Mekenajo-Dembi Dolo Link Road (181km), Welkite-Hosaina Link Road (121km) and Ankober-AwashArba Link Road (89km).

The project’s three components include the upgrading of federal link roads and related supervision services, ERA modernisation / sector capacity building and network management studies.

In 1997, Ethiopia launched a ten-year road sector development programme that initially included two phase from 1997 to 2007.

The project has now been extended to 2010 as phase III for addressing the limited coverage and poor state of the road network as well as the growing transport needs of the country.