UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ECONOMIC E/ESCAP/CTR/5 AND 11 September 2008 SOCIAL COUNCIL ORIGINAL: ENGLISH ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMISSION FOR ASIA AND THE PACIFIC Committee on Transport First session 29-31 October 2008 Bangkok FIFTY YEARS OF THE ASIAN HIGHWAY (Item 5 of the provisional agenda) Note by the secretariat SUMMARY The year 2009 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Asian Highway network initiative. The present document gives a brief history and timelines of various phases of the Network development, and more recent activities related to the Asian Highway. It also outlines proposals for the recognition of the progress made in regional member countries and the long term sustainability and utilization of this vast infrastructure for the benefit of people and communities in the region. The present document also outlines proposals for organizing various celebratory activities, including organizing an Asian Highway truck caravan from Tokyo to Istanbul, Turkey, and other national level activities, such as road safety campaigns along the Asian Highway. The Committee is invited to provide the secretariat with guidance on the development of the Asian Highway and express its support for the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Asian Highway network and invite Asian Highway member countries to join the truck caravan. DMR A2008-000261 TP 240908 DP 240908 DI 250908 CTR_5E - i - CONTENTS Page I. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................... 1 II. HISTORY OF THE ASIAN HIGHWAY INITIATIVE ......................................................... 1 III. FORMALIZATION THROUGH THE INTERGOVERNMENTAL AGREEMENT ON THE ASIAN HIGHWAY NETWORK ............................................................................ 5 IV. PRIORITY INVESTMENT NEEDS....................................................................................... 7 V. OTHER ASIAN HIGHWAY RELATED DEVELOPMENTS............................................... 9 A. Asian Highway database................................................................................................... 9 B. Asian Highway route signs............................................................................................... 9 C. Operationalization of the Asian Highway ........................................................................ 9 D. Road safety....................................................................................................................... 10 E. Evaluation of the Asian Highway initiative...................................................................... 10 VI. PROPOSALS TO CELEBRATE THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY.................................... 11 A. Asian Highway truck caravan........................................................................................... 11 B. Road safety awareness campaigns along the Asian Highway .......................................... 13 C. Others................................................................................................................................ 13 VII. ISSUES FOR CONSIDERATION .......................................................................................... 13 Annexes 1. Projects on the Asian Highway implemented after 1992......................................................... 15 2. Signatories to the Intergovernmental Agreement on the Asian Highway Network as of 18 July 2008 .................................................................................................................... 16 E/ESCAP/CTR/5 Page 1 I. INTRODUCTION 1. The development of international highways in the ESCAP (then the Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE)) region was initiated by the Commission at its fifteenth session, held in Australia in 1959. Forty-six years later, in 2005, the Intergovernmental Agreement on the Asian Highway Network1 entered into force, marking the beginning of a new era in the development of the international highways. The Asian Highway network has now become an important building block for the realization of the vision of an international integrated intermodal transport system in Asia and is now receiving priority attention in national programmes of member countries (Asian Highway member countries are the 32 countries that have the Asian Highway in their territory). 2. The year 2009 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Asian Highway network. The present document gives a brief history and timelines of various phases of the development of the network, and more recent activities related to the Asian Highway. It also outlines proposals for organizing various celebratory activities at the regional and national levels. At the core of the regional celebration is the organization of the Asian Highway truck caravan from Tokyo to Istanbul, Turkey. Other proposed activities include road safety campaigns along the Asian Highway. The present document also outlines proposals for the recognition of the progress made in regional member countries and the long term sustainability and utilization of this vast infrastructure for the benefit of people and communities in the region. II. HISTORY OF THE ASIAN HIGHWAY INITIATIVE 3. The development of the Asian Highway was initiated by ECAFE at its fifteenth session, held in 1959 in Broadbeach, Australia. This was done through the Commission’s full endorsement of the recommendation of the Highway Subcommittee at its fourth session, to take early concerted action to develop international highways within the ECAFE region. 4. At its fifteenth session, 2 the Commission noted that, while there was still a continuing deficiency in international highway communications in the ECAFE region, there was a general awareness on the part of the Governments of the need to develop such links in order to foster the economic, social and cultural development of the region. In the case of landlocked countries, adequate land communications had assumed special importance, since highway communications were an important means of linking those areas with the neighbouring countries and thus providing outlets for trade and commerce. 5. In 1959, three working groups on international highways were convened in order to propose routes to be included in the network, which would provide not only direct links between the capitals, important ports, production and consumption centres, and tourism sites, but also necessary 1 Commission resolution 60/4, annex. 2 See Official Records of the Economic and Social Council, 1959, Supplement No. 2, E/3214/-E/CN.11/506, para. 307. E/ESCAP/CTR/5 Page 2 connections with landlocked countries and the European highway system. The international highway network in the region was referred to as the Asian Highway for the first time at the sixteenth session of the Commission, held in Bangkok in 1960. 6. The initial Asian Highway routes AH1 and AH2 were aimed at linking Bangkok and Tehran through Rangoon (Yangon), Dacca (Dhaka), New Delhi, Rawalpindi and Kabul, with further connections to Turkey and the E-roads system in Europe. From Bangkok, it branched into two highways: one to Kuala Lumpur and Singapore and the other to Phnom Penh. There were proposals for connections with Kathmandu, Colombo and Luang Prabang in Lao People’s Democratic Republic, as well as important ports, such as Karachi in Pakistan, Bombay (Mumbai) and Madras (Chennai) in India, Sihanoukville in Cambodia and Qui Nhon in Viet Nam. The first international standards for highways and bridges were also proposed. 7. At its seventeenth and eighteenth sessions, the Commission adopted resolution 33(XVII) on the Asian Highway and resolution 39(XVIII) on Asian highways, respectively. In those resolutions the Commission noted the progress made and requested the relevant entities and the cooperating countries to extend assistance for carrying out pre-investment surveys, and for the planning and execution of projects that would help to complete the Asian Highway network and in particular the missing links. 8. As a result, the initial development of the Asian Highway was supported by the United Nations Special Fund, and pre-investment studies were undertaken in Asian Highway member countries. Countries such as Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan, the Netherlands, Germany and the United States of America also supported the development of the Asian Highway. 9. Since the commencement of the project, considerable progress was achieved with assistance from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), donor countries and the active cooperation of participating countries. Progress, however, slowed down when UNDP assistance to the Asian Highway project was phased out in 1975.3 Since that time, the Transport Division of ESCAP has been responsible, within its limited financial and human resources, for keeping the project alive, mainly through promotion and monitoring. 10. At its forty-eighth session, held in Beijing from 14 to 23 April 1992, the Commission revitalized the Asian Highway project as one of the major components of the Asian Land Transport Infrastructure Development Project (ALTID). To achieve the objectives of the Transport and Communications Decade for Asia and the Pacific, 1985-1994 with regard to land transport in Asia, the Commission endorsed the integrated project on Asian land transport infrastructure development, comprising the Asian Highway, the Trans-Asian Railway and the facilitation of land transport projects. 3 See the report of the thirty-second session of the Commission. E/ESCAP/CTR/5