Contractors train in Kenya for S. Sudan roads upkeep

By Richard Ruati

March 16, 2010 (KISII, Kenya) – Seventeen contractors from Southern Sudan are gaining new skills and new insights into labor-based contracting approaches through participation in a 7-week training course at the Kisii Training Center in Kenya.

A part of the Kenya Institute of Highways and Building Technology, the training center’s professional staff is drawn from the seasoned engineers of the Kenyan Ministry of Transport and Public Works.

Investment in local contractors is part US Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Sudan Infrastructure Services Project (SISP), a program to rehabilitate and construct sustainable infrastructure in Southern Sudan. Trainees at the Kisii Training Center are learning various aspects of road construction and other topics like environmental impact and marketing.

According to Eng. Martin Ontomwa, Resident Instructor for the Kisii Training Center, “The training center is traditionally a labor-based training institute that specializes in rural projects. However, it has the flexibility to adapt to changes in local technology.”

Instead of depending on expensive machinery like graders, rollers, and bulldozers — equipment that smaller companies cannot afford — labor-based training programs encourage the utilization of hand tools such as hoes, shovels, hand rammers and spades for road maintenance work.

As part of the training, participants visited a small town called Nyamira, which is about 50 kilometers from Kisii. There, the students witnessed local laborers maintaining their own 12 kilometer road, a practice site funded by the Kisii Training Center.

The study tour also included a trip to Maasai Mara and the border of Tanzania. Studying well maintained roads in Kenya provides a first-hand understanding of the ultimate objective of road maintenance programs in Southern Sudan – a knowledgeable workforce capable of maintaining a sustainable road network connecting communities with basic services, resources and markets.

One of the 17 contractors, Afafu Faith Rose, discussed her plans to transfer the knowledge she gains in Kisii to her colleagues back in Southern Sudan. Another, Malish Martin Joseph of Property Investment Agency Limited (PIAL), says he is grateful to the American people and the Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS) for funding a program that engages small Sudanese firms in road improvement projects in Southern Sudan. He adds, “It is only through indigenous companies that South Sudan will retain much of its expectation of road maintenance, through the common people and the local contractors, leading to poverty eradication.”

The GOSS Ministry of Transport and Roads is using Kenya’s experience in local labor-based road maintenance as a model for developing similar capacity in Southern Sudan, building on an initiative that began in 1998.

Labor-based road works in Kenya began in 1974 in four selected districts, with the work in each district run independently. The controlling ministry at the time soon realized that work methods, techniques, and procedures in the various districts needed to be standardized if the program was to be put into effect on a national level. This national program became known as the Rural Access Roads Program (RARP).

The objective of standardizing the works led to the formation of a training site in one of the initial four districts, the Kisii Training Center. The Center is now being used by SISP to train local Southern Sudanese contractors in appropriate road maintenance technologies.

Skills building through local labor-based road construction and maintenance contracting provides jobs and family income to impoverished communities while paving the way for future growth. Local companies hiring local labor offer hope and stability to communities transitioning toward a peaceful economy.

(ST)