Decision Making Process for Commencement of Construction on Tsubasa Bridge in Cambodia

Abstract

In 2015, Tsubasa Bridge was inaugurated at Neak Loeung in Cambodia. The bridge was requested to construct with Japan's ODA in December 2001. Compared to similia projects such as Kizuna Bridge in Cambodia or Nile Bridge in Uganda, the bridge required a longer time prior to the decision-making by the Japanese government for providing an ODA grant.

Regarding the bridge project, the Advisory Council for Environmental and Social Considerations discussed not only natural and social environmental issues, but contents of alternatives, project scales, the timing of inauguration, and furthermore whether the ODA grant is appropriate. The Council advised JICA as “JICA should monitor the traffic volume whether the number follows the estimated number for a couple of years.”

We focus on the reasons why it took more than eight years from the request to the signing of Exchange of Notes for providing an ODA grant to the project as (1) the method for capturing current traffic volume and the forecast of future traffic volume became significant issues at the advisory council, and (2) there might be carefully conducted on examinations of the environmental and social considerations because ODA grant, not ODA loan, would be considered to the project.

This study revealed the process for decision making, focusing particularly on the period between the completion of the feasibility study in March 2006 and the commencement of the basic design study in February 2009, with reviewing and analyzing mainly publicly available documents. We concluded that there might have been a significant impact on considering the process for JICA, and it might have caused two years for getting “go-ahead” from the advisory committee.