The success of the project can be attributed to a combination of solid government ownership and strategic vision; the long-term partnership between the government, ADB, and a number of development partners; the high level of advocacy of civil society groups; and a series of well-targeted technical assistance projects that bridged existing knowledge gaps. The Southern Transport Development Project is an invaluable source of lessons for mega road project planning and implementation._x005F_x000D__x005F_x000D_Planning and preparing a mega greenfield road project requires adequate allocation of resources and time to allow for timely and efficient commencement of civil works. The project implementation essentially focused on the concept finalization and detailed engineering in the first 4 years. For a country with no prior experience of expressway development, direct support from ADB on project conceptualization and detailed formulation is necessary to ensure project quality and final success. Even with such support, the finalization of engineering design took twice as much time as planned at project appraisal. ADB's lending instruments are now more diversified than they were in 1999. A recommended model is to use a technical assistance loan or a project design advance to assist the government in finalizing the engineering before the project loan proposal is submitted to the ADB Board._x005F_x000D__x005F_x000D_The impact of the lead time between the initial conceptualization and the commencement of services can be significant enough to change the feasibility of project alternatives and may result in a different preference. It was already envisaged in 1999 that the Southern Expressway would ultimately be a six-lane, high-capacity, limited-access express highway, and a stage-wise construction approach was adopted. However, the fast social and economic development in the southern region demanded a high-capacity highway earlier than the projection. The government, cofinanciers and ADB demonstrated great patience and flexibility to allow the further development of project concept during the early stage of project implementation, and finally ensured the relevance of project outputs. _x005F_x000D__x005F_x000D_Managing the public relationship is an important part of successful project management. Even with the best ever compensation package in Sri Lanka, strong public protests were faced at the beginning of the project with regard to the land acquisition and compensation process. A proper project communication plan was not prepared during the project formulation and early implementation stage. To manage the public relationship, the Road Development Authority established a project communication plan in 2005 and ran a number of public awareness campaigns. Finally, the Road Development Authority gained strong support from stakeholders._x005F_x000D__x005F_x000D_Lastly, the implementation of mega projects can provide good opportunities for improving safeguard systems. Under the Southern Transport Development Project resettlement implementation plan, the mechanism of land acquisition and resettlement committee system was introduced to Sri Lanka for the first time. These committees were very popular among affected people as they played a very constructive role in redressing grievances. This mechanism managed a large number of cases which would otherwise have resulted in legal procedures, and thus significantly reduced implementation delays. The government also adopted the land acquisition and resettlement committee system in others sectors. It was also learned that the grievance redress system needed to be established as early as possible and stakeholders made aware of it.
Southern Transport Development Project