The importance of rural roads extends to all aspects of economic and social development of rural communities, including demands for and access to health, education, information, etc. The total need for upgrading and maintenance of rural roads in the developing world is enormous and will have to be addressed with limited resources calling for better policies and practices.

The scarcity of resources, the low traffic flows and the fact that all-year vehicular access is not always necessary, all indicate that conventionally engineered roads are in many instances neither necessary nor possible. This points out the need to develop appropriate engineering standards for low volume roadsand design and maintain rural roads in relation to specific levels of serviceability defined in terms of access and usage.

The prime consideration in defining rural road improvements should be reliability and durability rather than speed and comfort. This would lead to concentrating expenditure on surface drainage and essential structures, on spot surface improvements in critical sections, on essential access and rehabilitation of existing roads, and on routine maintenance, rather than on geometric characteristics determined by design speeds.

The construction sector, where substantial national investments are made in most developing countries, has a great potential to create productive employment. Road construction and maintenance operations account for the lion share of these investments. In addition, the sector particularly lend itself to employment-intensive approaches and is a sector where labour-based technologies have been successfully applied with important impact on employment creation and income generation.

The ILO has been involved in labour-based road rehabilitation and maintenance programmes for more than 20 years, working with governments in over 40countries. These programmes range from small pilot projects to large-scale infrastructure investment programmes, from rural road construction to highway maintenance projects.

Road construction and maintenance have in the past been implemented as public works programmes, using direct labour (people employed by the public works departments). However, most countries are now moving towards private sector execution, involving domestic small-scale contractors to carry out labour-based projects, and local consultants for the design and supervision of the works.

Today's labour-based road programmes not only create jobs, they create productive jobs with good working conditions, and distribute wealth and social benefits. They are also environmentally sound and cost-effective. Comparative studies done by the ILO have shown that without the slightest compromise on quality, the labour-based option is between 10-30% less expensive than conventional equipment-based options, that it reduces foreign exchange requirements by some 50-60%, and for the same investment, creates 2-4 times more employment.

Most governments and financiers cannot afford to ignore such an option, if fully understood, in an era where employment generation and poverty alleviation tally closely with improved efficiency in programme delivery!

The policy environment for labour-based technology development is further described under the ILO's Employment-Intensive Investment Programme (EIIP) web page on Poverty and Investment Strategies.

You may also look at what the EIIP describes on their website regarding private sector execution and comparative studies