PROJECT INFORMATION DOCUMENT (PID) APPRAISAL STAGE Report No.: AB7426 Project Name Second Rural Roads Project - AF2 Parent Project Name Morocco Second Rural Roads Project Region MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA Country Morocco Sector Rural and inter-urban roads and highways Theme Rural services and infrastructure Lending Instrument Investment Project Financing Project ID P148003 Parent Project ID P094007 Borrower(s) Caisse pour le Financement Routier Implementing Agency Caisse pour le Financement Routier and Direction des Routes Environment Category B-Partial Assessment Date PID Prepared March 14, 2014 Date of Appraisal January 9, 2014 Authorization Date of Board Approval April 29, 2014 1. Project Context Poverty is essentially a rural phenomenon in Morocco. Rural areas encompass 43% of Morocco’s population and seven out of ten poor people. In these areas, 14.5% of the population lives below the national poverty line. The incidence and distribution of poverty vary considerably among provinces. A key factor contributing to poverty is insufficient access of rural dwellers to basic infrastructure and social services, particularly in the mountainous zones and semi-arid plains and uplands. The Government therefore aims at improving this access and at reducing the large inequalities of access between provinces. To achieve these objectives, the Government adopted the “2020 Strategy for Rural Development”, which includes basic infrastructure programs for rural areas, targeting roads, drinking water, and electricity. In the road sector, the Government launched a first National Rural Roads Program in 1995. The program ended in 2005 and rehabilitated or upgraded over 11,000 km of unpaved roads. The goal was to improve these roads into all-weather roads. The program increased the national rural road accessibility index from 36% in 1995 to 54% in 2005. This index is the proportion of rural people who live within one kilometer of an all-weather road; it is aimed at measuring the accessibility of the rural population to roads in a simple manner. The Government pursued its efforts with a second National Rural Roads Program (NRRP2) started in 2005, which involves the rehabilitation or the upgrade of about 15,560 km of rural roads, with the main objective to increase the accessibility index from 54% to 80% at the end of the program in 2015. The NRRP2 should also reduce inequalities of access between provinces. As of June 2013, the accessibility index reached 77%, reflecting the satisfactory progress of the NRRP2. 2. Project Development Objective Current Project Development Objective – Parent Project The parent project’s development objective is to increase the rural population’s access to all -weather roads in support of the NRRP2 mentioned above. Proposed Project Development Objective - Additional Financing The project development objective remains unchanged under the proposed additional financing, which is processed to cover a financing gap in the overall NRRP2. 3. Project description The Bank would provide an additional financing loan in the amount of US$95 million equivalent to Caisse pour le Financement Routier (CFR) with the guarantee from the Kingdom of Morocco for the ongoing Second Rural Roads Project (P094007, original Bank loan 7378-MOR approved in 2006 and Bank additional financing 7876-MA approved in 2010). This project supports the NRRP2, which has two components, based on the source of financing: - Component A (financed by the CFR): the rehabilitation or the upgrade of 12,560 km of rural roads (including small, complementary road-related infrastructure), for an estimated cost of US$1,450 million equivalent. - Component B (financed by the General Budget and the Road Fund): the rehabilitation or the upgrade of 3,000 km of rural roads (including small, complementary road-related infrastructure), for an estimated cost of US$425 million. The Borrower for the proposed additional financing is the CFR. Such proposed additional financing of US$95 million equivalent is needed to cover a financing gap in the overall NRRP2. It, alongside the US$36 million contribution of the Borrower (obtained from local authorities), will finance around 1,300 km of rehabilitation or upgrade of rural roads (including small, complementary road-related infrastructure), which were already selected in 2005 as part of the NRRP2, whose detailed design is ready, but for which no other financier could be identified. These 1,300 km are part of 2,000 km still to be financed under component A of NPRR2. The Borrower is still waiting for the contribution from the local authorities to fund the remaining 700 km under component A. The additional financing would thus help achieving the NRRP2’s main objective of 80% of rural road accessibility index in 2015. 4. Tentative Financing (in US$ million equivalent) Source: Borrower 36 International Bank for Reconstruction and Development 95 Total 131 5. Implementation The general implementation arrangements of the parent project will remain unchanged and will apply to this additional financing. The CFR and the Direction des Routes (DR) will continue to be the project implementing agencies, with each entity being responsible for the rural roads it finances, namely component A for the CFR and component B for the DR. Under a framework agreement, the DR will however continue to act as the oversight entity and construction manager of all NRRP2 rural roads subprojects, including those financed by the CFR. The CFR will continue to assume administrative and financial responsibility of the roads under component A. 6. Safeguard Policies (including public consultation) Safeguard Policies Triggered Yes No Environmental Assessment (OP/BP 4.01) X Natural Habitats (OP/BP 4.04) X Forests (OP/BP 4.36) X Pest Management (OP 4.09) X Physical Cultural Resources (OP/BP 4.11) X Indigenous Peoples (OP/BP 4.10) X Involuntary Resettlement (OP/BP 4.12) X Safety of Dams (OP/BP 4.37) X Projects on International Waterways (OP/BP 7.50) X Projects in Disputed Areas (OP/BP 7.60) X 7. Contact points World Bank Contact: Vincent Vesin Title: Transport Specialist Tel: +1-202-458-9872 Email: vvesin@worldbank.org Borrower (Caisse pour le Financement Routier) Contact: Ahmed Imzel Title: Director Tel: +212-37-71-32-41 Email: imzel@mtpnet.gov.ma 8. For more information contact: The InfoShop The World Bank 1818 H Street, NW Washington, D.C. 20433 Telephone: (202) 458-4500 Fax: (202) 522-1500 Email: pic@worldbank.org Web: http://www.worldbank.org/infoshop