Box 2.4: Commendable Practice 2: Ethiopia’s Road Development Programme With support from the World Bank and other development partners, the Government of Ethiopia undertook an ambitious plan for the expansion of its road network in the 1990s. It formulated the 10-year Road Sector Development Program (RSDP 1997–2007), a two-phased integrated package of investments, reforms, and institutional reorganisation which was later extended to include a third phase, up to the end of June 2010. The Programme was designed to achieve the following: • Improve trunk and regional/rural road access to meet agricultural and other economic development needs; • Build institutional capacity in both the public and private sectors for sustainable road development and maintenance; and, • Provide economic opportunity for the rural poor both through increased employment in rural road works and affordable transport and services. Thirteen years after inception, there has been a remarkable transformation in both Ethiopia’s road conditions and the road sector. In all, more than 75,000 kilometres of road, including rural access roads, have been constructed or rehabilitated. During phase I, 8,709 km of roads were constructed or rehabilitated. The first two components of the project alone upgraded the country’s major connectors, including the Modjo-Awash-Gewane-Mille (442 km) on the import-export corridor, and the Awash-Hirna-Kulubi-Dire Dawa-Harar (311 km), a gateway to the eastern part of Ethiopia and Somalia. Phase II included the rehabilitation of 988 km of roads, upgrades to 1,758 km, and the construction of 628 km of new gravel roads. As of September 2008, heavy or emergency maintenance had been completed. Source: World Bank Ethiopia Road Sector Development Project and Ethiopian Roads Authority. Compiled by the CRM, September 2009. 86. Despite massive investments into fixed-wireless and mobile network infrastructure - including third generation mobile technology, as well as a national fibre optic backbone - in recent years, Ethiopia currently has the second lowest telephone penetration rate in Africa. The mobile market penetration is still one of the lowest in the world at little more than 3 percent. Fixed-line penetration is even lower, and this has also impacted on the development of the Internet sector. Prices of broadband connections are excessive. In fact, the 2010 ICT Development Index compiled by the International Telecommunications Union ranked Ethiopia 154 out of 159 countries, globally. The ICT Development Index (IDI) is a composite index made up of 11 indicators covering three sub-indices – ICT access, use and skills. It tracks the overall progress countries are making towards becoming information societies.15 87. The recent signing of a management deal between France Telecom and Ethiopian incumbent ETC is an encouraging development. Ethiopia needs to follow evolutions in the technology and respond to the needs of its business community and the population at large. This will ensure that it is not left out of the information revolution. 15 . See International Telecommunications Union (2010) Measuring the Information Society, ITU, Geneva. - 63 -