The World Bank says it has ap­proved a new project to sup­port Guyana in up­grad­ing and re­ha­bil­i­tat­ing the coun­try’s road in­fra­struc­ture.

It said the US$156 mil­lion In­te­grat­ed Trans­port Cor­ri­dors Project will fo­cus on en­hanc­ing Guyana’s trans­port net­work in se­lect­ed re­gions, en­sur­ing it is bet­ter equipped to with­stand nat­ur­al haz­ards and pro­vide safer, more re­li­able mo­bil­i­ty for peo­ple.

“Guyana’s rapid eco­nom­ic ex­pan­sion places in­creas­ing pres­sure on in­fra­struc­ture, while the grow­ing risks from nat­ur­al haz­ards, such as flood­ing and storms, fur­ther chal­lenge the coun­try’s sys­tems.

“This project will help Guyana’s road net­work keep pace with its growth by mak­ing it safer and more re­silient,” said Dilet­ta Doret­ti, World Bank Group Res­i­dent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Guyana.

The project is fund­ed through the World Bank’s In­ter­na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment As­so­ci­a­tion, the arm of the World Bank that helps the world’s low-in­come coun­tries.

The World Bank said Guyana’s road in­fra­struc­ture faces sev­er­al chal­lenges, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the coastal re­gions, where roads are high­ly vul­ner­a­ble to ex­treme weath­er events.

It said over 60 per cent of the road net­work con­sists of small­er roads, many of which sit on low-ly­ing coastal plains, mak­ing them high­ly ex­posed to the im­pacts of ris­ing sea lev­els, in­creased rain­fall in­ten­si­ty, and more fre­quent ex­treme weath­er events like storms and flood­ing. The most re­cent flood­ing event in 2021 caused over US$100 mil­lion in dam­age to the agri­cul­ture and trans­port sec­tors.

Poor road con­di­tions hin­der ac­cess to es­sen­tial ser­vices like health­care and ed­u­ca­tion, dis­rupt eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ties, and iso­late com­mu­ni­ties. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the road safe­ty sit­u­a­tion in Guyana is con­cern­ing, with a road mor­tal­i­ty rate of 15 deaths per 100,000 pop­u­la­tion.

The World  Bank said the project will fo­cus on up­grad­ing and re­ha­bil­i­tat­ing key road cor­ri­dors in se­lect­ed re­gions of Guyana, with a par­tic­u­lar em­pha­sis on im­prov­ing re­silience to nat­ur­al haz­ards.

It will im­ple­ment crit­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture im­prove­ments such as en­hanc­ing drainage sys­tems, sta­bi­liz­ing slopes, and rais­ing em­bank­ments to pre­vent ero­sion to safe­guard vi­tal trans­port links that sup­port agri­cul­ture, tourism, trade, and ac­cess to es­sen­tial ser­vices like health­care and ed­u­ca­tion.

The project will al­so pri­or­i­tize road safe­ty and in­clu­siv­i­ty. This in­cludes the safe­ty as­sess­ment of the en­tire pri­ma­ry road net­work and road safe­ty au­dits for se­lect­ed roads, fol­lowed by the in­stal­la­tion of road safe­ty en­gi­neer­ing so­lu­tions like crash bar­ri­ers and traf­fic calm­ing mea­sures, and the cre­ation of ded­i­cat­ed lanes for non-mo­tor­ized trans­port, such as pedes­tri­ans and cy­clists.

The World  Bank said spe­cial at­ten­tion will be giv­en to high-risk lo­ca­tions like schools, hos­pi­tals, and mar­kets. Mo­bil­i­ty plans tai­lored to the needs of women and oth­er vul­ner­a­ble groups will fea­ture in the project as well as road as­set man­age­ment sys­tems, cre­at­ing safer and trans­porta­tion op­tions.

WASH­ING­TON, Feb 28, CMC –

CMC/gh/ir/2025