• Project upgrades a main regional highway and connecting secondary roads for faster trade and better access to markets, education and health
• Roads will be safer, more climate resilient and serve communities across northern Laos, an area with traditionally challenging transport options
• Complementing this hardware investment, work is ongoing to streamline border procedures and upgrade Laos’ export capacity so that local farmers and businesses can better compete

Mr. Bounkhong is well known in Somxay village, in the northern Lao province of Oudomxay. His wife and daughter run a small shop in the middle of the village, selling snacks and everyday items but he spends much of his time at the family farm, where he grows vegetables and raises poultry. Like most of the villagers, he also holds fields where he cultivates rice for household consumption, plus cash crops like maize and rubber.

Life is getting better for Bounkhong’s family and for many of the villagers. For over a year now, a new road has run from the village to Houn district town 3 kilometers away. This is part of a network of secondary roads that connect to National Road 2, and their upgrade is financed by the World Bank as part of the $132 million Southeast Asia Regional Economic Corridor and Connectivity Project, designed to increase job opportunities through better connectivity across three countries in Southeast Asia.

“It only takes ten minutes or so to get into town now,” says Bounkhong. “Along the old road, it could take an hour in the monsoon season”. As secondary schools, hospitals, markets, shops and government offices are all located in Houn, the new road provides easy year-round access to essential services, and it also means that traders are more likely to visit farmers in the village.

The project is upgrading 136 kilometers of National Road 2, a section of Asian Highway no 13, bringing it up to ASEAN road standards in terms of width, climate resilience, and safety features. Connected to Thailand in the west and Viet Nam to the east through renovated border crossings, it provides a revitalized trade route across the three countries. The new streamlined border facilities allow more efficient regional trade, while the secondary roads connecting villages like Somxay provide rural people with much improved access to markets and public services, helping ensure that communities along the corridor are not left behind.

This marks a vital change for people across northern Laos. As a landlocked and mountainous country, Laos has traditionally struggled to access regional and international trade routes and value chains. Roads are difficult to build and maintain in sparsely populated areas dominated by forests and mountain peaks, making the transport of goods to market, and people to public services, hazardous and expensive.

Sitting under a house in the village, a group of mothers are enthusiastic about the change. “We grow rice to eat of course, but we also produce maize and rubber to sell”, says Ms Moung, dandling a baby girl on her knee. “Merchants have long come here to buy our crops, but now more traders are coming and we can negotiate a better price. The transport is easier and we are in a stronger position”.

“It’s better for the children now as well,” says her neighbor, Ms Pheun. “We have a primary school in the village, but the secondary school is in town, a few kilometers away. More of the kids go to secondary school now that we have a decent road”. The ladies all agree this is a very positive development. “Children who complete secondary school can find jobs in Houn district town, in the provincial capital, or even Luang Prabang” says Ms Thid. “We are connected now”.

Around the corner, district health staff from Houn are packing up after giving polio vaccinations to the village children. Mr Somphadith, the team leader, says they vaccinated 74 youngsters that morning. “That’s a very good morning’s work”, he adds. “We can get to villages like Somxay easily now, and we can do two villages in one day. Before, the road was terrible and sometimes you couldn’t even get here on a motorbike. We had to walk everywhere in the wet season.”

Along National Road 2, investment is transforming the traditional subsistence-farming economy as opportunities multiply. Large scale farms are growing crops such as soybeans and watermelons for export to China, while processing factories are opening to prepare the produce for faraway markets. Once scarce jobs are becoming more plentiful.

World Bank financing has also helped the Lao government invest in a laboratory in Oudomxay to check that local products reach the required sanitary and phytosanitary standards for export. To further enhance public safety, assistance to the Ministry of Public Works and Transport is helping improve regulations on the transport of dangerous goods.

At both ends of Road 2, Customs Officers are already using digital tools and new procedures even as their new border posts are being built. At the border with Thailand in Ngeun district, Xayabury province, heavy trucks, lighter commercial traffic and passenger vehicles run along newly laid roads to temporary customs and immigration offices, in use while the new facilities are being built. A local trader, Mr Lee, gets through the offices quickly. He’s been crossing the border here for three years, importing gas from Thailand for customers in Laos.

“It’s much better now,” he nods, “it’s faster getting goods and vehicles through the border. They have new systems that make it really fast on the Lao side – there’s less paperwork. It only takes five or ten minutes now to cross when the border isn’t busy, and of course the road here is greatly improved”.

Back in Somxay village, a long way from any borders, Mr. Bounkhong sees changes that are different, but no less profound. “I have three granddaughters,” he says, “and their lives will be better than mine and those of their parents. We are not isolated now, and they will have more opportunity”.