Estimating Resiliency Benefits of Road Upgradation : Case of the East Road in Malaita, Solomon Islands

Abstract

Governments and their multilateral partners are increasingly recognizing the importance of incorporating climate and disaster resilience considerations into infrastructure development plans as well as the related construction and financing decisions. The potential medium- and long-term benefits of increased resilience must be considered alongside short-term costs of resilient design and implementation. The objective of this paper to estimate the resiliency benefits, in terms of key socioeconomic outcomes, under several road upgradation options and rainfall scenarios. The estimated benefits are compared against the related lifecycle costs to inform investment decisions. The analysis is based on the methodology developed by the World Bank and Kyoto University to operationalize and measure key infrastructure resilience concepts at the project level. The East Road in Malaita in the Solomon Islands is used to pilot the this methodology and examine its applicability. The parameters selected to measure resiliency are based on the key benefits the road provides to the people living around it: economic benefits proxied by travel time, access to hospitals, and access to markets. Due to data constraints in Malaita, the report is based primarily on expert inputs and geo-spatial data. It considers mainly technical improvements to road upgradation that might impact resiliency.