The topic of this policy paper how to develop contractual methods to secure the full usable-life of roads is of critical economic and fiscal importance to all countries, but especially so for countries with limited public budgets for road rehabilitation and maintenance. Applying Performance-Based Maintenance Contracting (PBMC) to the road sector can produce significant improvements for the fiscal purse and for users in the form of better maintained and therefore safer roads. This paper provides a condensed yet substantive overview of the key international lessons learned in the area of PBMC. As explained, not only must the performance standards be carefully set and calibrated to the particular country/road network under analysis, but one has to pay close attention to the state of development of the local private road construction/maintenance industry which will be asked to bid on the performance-based contracts. The paper also highlights the importance of building up the local capacity of the public sector over time and learning what it takes to monitor PMBC contracts. If performance criteria are not able to be verified by competent and well-organised public sector actors, it will prove difficult to hold the private sector contractor accountable through enforcement of standards. Publication Date: 06.2016
