Consultant to Prepare a Road Sector Financing Strategy

REQUEST FOR EXPRESS OF INTEREST CONSULTANT TO PREPARE A LOCAL ROADS NETWORK FINANCING STRATEGY REFERENCE NO. CRRCIP-IC-016 The Government of Lao Peoples Democratic Republic (GoL) has received financing support from the World Bank’s (WB) International Development Association (IDA) to implement the Lao PDR Climate Resilient Road Connectivity Improvement Project (CRRCIP), and intends to apply part of the proceeds for consulting services. The proposed of Climate Resilient Road Connectivity Improvement Project (CRRCIP) seeks to build about 300 km of District Roads and Rural Roads in the poor districts of Khammouan, Savannakhet, and Saravan provinces. The MPWT in consultation with the DPWT of these three provinces had identified a long list of proposed roads. About 100 km of roads in each of the provinces will be selected from the roads in this longlist through a prioritization exercise based on aspects which include: (i) passing through a poor district – based on poverty headcount, (ii) criticality of the link for climate resiliency of the network, (iii) connectivity to agricultural areas, (iv) population served by the road, (v) traffic level, (vi) not passing through environmentally sensitive areas, and (vii) no resettlement of more than 200 people (or 40 households) and/or more than 40 households severely affected with 10 percent of productive assets owned by individual household lost in all three target provinces. The proposed project provides connectivity to National Roads and access to the east-west economic corridor between Vietnam and Thailand thus increasing market linkages and contributing towards greater economic gains to the local communities. The CRRCIP now intends to engage a part-time, suitably qualified and experienced individual Consultant to Prepare a Local Roads Network Financing Strategy. Specifically, the consultant is required to prepare a local road network financing strategy which will include (i) Road Sector Overview and Expenditure Needs, (ii) Review of current Road Sector Financing, (iii) Fiscal and Macro-economic context, (iv) exploring Financing Options and Reform Scenarios, (v) prepare the Road Sector Financing Strategy and Action Plan. This will be a part-time assignment and the Consultant will work intermittently in Lao PDR and home-based. During visits to Lao PDR, the consultant will be based in Vientiane Capital, MPWT. In the course of entire assignment, the Consultant will cooperate with MPWT and in particular with the Departme