Assessment of the Practices and Challenges of Internal Road Infrastructure Development in Burayu Town
Creators: name: Bedassa, Olika
Publisher: name: National Academic Digital Repository of Ethiopia
Year: 2019

description: Cobblestone road is one of the infrastructure developments implemented in many cities of the country since 2005. Many internal roads (cobblestone in this case) are constructed jointly by the community and government participation. The roads have many benefits, i.e. creating job to the unemployed youths and helping to minimizing unemployment rate in Burayu Town in particular and the whole country at large. Furthermore, the cobblestone projects are making all the surrounding environments attractive and beautiful and the internal roads are always facilitating the overall service delivery in and out of the town. As to the researcher's observation a significant part of the cobblestone roads are not well maintained and kept as per needed. This piece of research work is tried to assess the practices and challenges of internal road infrastructure development in Burayu Town. The study was conducted adapting descriptive research design. In terms of approach, mixed method, where both quantitative as well as qualitative data are combined and analyzed. The unit of analysis for this study is Burayu town as a sample which has six Kebeles, among which Burayu Keta Kebele and Gefersa Burayu Kebele were sampled purposively, while respondents are randomly selected from residents in the selected kebeles. Data were collected through questionnaire and interview of key informants, observation of the field and critically reviewing documents, academic journals, proceedings, books, articles contributed by different authors, reports, policy documents, internet based information which contains relevant information related to the subject under the study.The findings indicated that cobblestone roads are moderately benefiting the community, who assured for benefits they have obtained. Whereas, the roads are getting damage due to other infrastructure development works by some government institutions like ELPA, Telecommunication and Water and Sewerage Authority). The community's sense of ownership has slightly improved in fear of losing the roads' quality and benefits due to damages in the roads. The roads are deteriorating because of the absence of road management together with poor maintenance during post construction. Another significant problem observed was improper ditches /resulted in water or mud overflow to the roads. Based on the conclusion, some of the recommendations are:the government at all level has to create awareness to make the community to participate on the construction of the internal roads. It is expected to mobilize the community to evaluate and monitor the roads as well, other types of infrastructures like telecommunication wire installation, water pipe that can be lined across the local roads and others should be implemented before construction, the government has to work more in raising awareness to make the community to actively participate on the construction of the roads; and also provide space and opportunity to the community and other stakeholders to participate fully in preserving, managing and maintaining the roads; as well as the community to evaluate and monitor the roads and directives that guide how to use the cobblestone roads should be in place as a legal framework