The World Bank’s Board of Directors on Saturday night in Kiev approved a new $432 million support package “Building Resilient Infrastructure in a Vulnerable Environment in Ukraine (DRIVE)” aimed at helping the government improve the resilience of the national road network and operational efficiency in the transport sector.
The Bank told Interfax-Ukraine that DRIVE complements the existing project “Rehabilitation of Essential Logistics Infrastructure and Network Connectivity (RELINC)”, under which modular road bridges were delivered and 200 flatcars were manufactured to increase Ukrzaliznytsia’s freight capacity and export capability.
The World Bank noted that Ukraine’s transportation infrastructure has suffered significant damage since the war began in February 2022, disrupting key import and export routes. According to the recently published Rapid Damage and Recovery Needs Assessment (RDNA4), road infrastructure in the transport sector has suffered the most damage: 58% of the transport sector; 30% of state roads and bridges, 11% of local roads and bridges, and 17% of municipal roads suffered significant damage.
DRIVE financing includes a $212 million loan from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) under the ADVANCE Ukraine (ADVANCE Ukraine) Trust Fund, which was supported by the Government of Japan. The financing also includes a $210 million loan from the Special Program for the Recovery of Ukraine and Moldova (SPUR) and a $10 million grant from the Ukraine Support, Recovery, Rehabilitation and Reform Trust Fund (URTF).
The project will be implemented by the State Agency for Infrastructure Rehabilitation and Development of Ukraine.
The project page on the Bank’s website notes that it has three components, the first of which is the preservation of the national road network. This component includes two components. The first, a $270.48 million investment for national roads, finances the design, execution, and supervision of construction works aimed at maintaining certain sections of national roads in proper operational condition, including through operational maintenance, major road repairs, and major bridge repairs.
The second component, National Roads and Road Transport Reform, allocates $90 million for transportation sector performance with a results-based approach.
The second component for $39 million is periodic maintenance of the national road network, it also has two components: installation of emergency modular road bridges and climate-smart preservation of key links in the road network.
The third component is technical assistance and project management, which also has two components: technical assistance and project development ($9 million URTF grant), which complements the investment-oriented components, and project management ($1 million URTF grant), which finances eligible costs for implementation and project management support, training, and knowledge sharing.
