Background
The road network in Côte d'Ivoire covers a total length of around 85,000 km. However, about 75,000 km of these are not asphalted. Approximately 32,000 km of these roads belong to category "D", the rural road network made of compacted red laterite. All roads in this category are subject to heavy wear and tear caused by agricultural traffic and truck transport. In addition, they are regularly severely damaged during the rainy season.
The Ivorian state wants to improve this situation in the long term and sustainably. Ivorian pioneer troops are to be trained for civilian tasks in road construction and maintenance in order to improve the transport infrastructure all over the country and thus make an important contribution to the economic and social development of rural regions.
Project
GAUFF Engineering has been commissioned by the Ivorian Ministry of Defence to build four road maintenance operation centres spread across the country in Séguéla, Odienné, San-Pedro and Boundouko as well as a road maintenance department with a training centre in Bouaké for the rehabilitation of existing roads and for the construction of new category D roads. For this purpose, two existing pioneer sites will be expanded accordingly and three new sites will be newly built, all of the sites will then be equipped with the necessary staff and technical equipment, e.g. construction machinery, trucks and workshops.
The pioneers themselves will be trained by experts from GAUFF Engineering and given basic engineering and operational training for rural road and bridge construction. In order to ensure the sustainability of the project, the trained pioneers then act as instructors for the planning, maintenance and construction of rural earth roads. For this purpose, a military casern in Abidjan was rehabilitated and converted into a temporary training centre until the newly built training centre in Bouaké is completed. In the practical part of the training, 110 km of selected earth roads are being rehabilitated under the supervision of GAUFF Engineering.
In addition to staff training, GAUFF Engineering is providing comprehensive equipment procurement to equip the five sites in this classic EPPM project. For example, 86 trucks, ten wheel loaders, five mobile cranes, 15 bulldozers, seven crawler excavators, eleven tractors, six vibratory rollers, five mobile workshop containers as well as five construction office containers, laboratory and storage containers, and other equipment, mainly coming from German manufacturers and suppliers, were procured and shipped to Côte d'Ivoire.
Due to the rehabilitation of the roads and the new training opportunities for the pioneers, the project makes an important contribution to the improvement of rural infrastructure, the associated economic development as well as the integration and mutual acceptance between the military and civil society.
Services
Arranging project financing in cooperation with KfW IPEX Bank
Engineering
Project Management
Planning and contracting and supervision of construction works
Procurement to equip the road maintenance operation centres with machinery and equipment
Education and training of local instructors and new pioneer recruits
Environmental and social impact assessment and implementation of appropriate measures in line with World Bank Group standards.
