perience was being gained by the Turkish personnel as they built and maintained the highway system.
By far the greatest part of the Bureau’s effort was in supplying equipment. The initial aid program provided for shipment to Turkey of equipment, materials, and parts valued at approximately $4.5 million; subsequent aid programs increased this figure to approximately $41 million. Equipment was already arriving in Turkey in December 1947 when the first of the PRA group arrived.
The task of institution building[N 1] required innovative measures, especially in training matters. Initially, recruiting local personnel satisfactory as equipment operators proved to be difficult, and to furnish enough operators, the Turkish Army supplied officers and men to the program. This speeded up construction of strategic highways and was considered to be sufficient justification for bringing army personnel into the training program. Prior to starting actual road construction, all operators received training on the new equipment.
The basic program was essentially completed by the mid-1950’s, and the last advisor returned to the United States in late 1958. Measured in terms of highway improvement, the mileage of all-weather roads on the Turkish National Road system more than doubled between 1948 and 1958, and on the Provincial System it increased fivefold. In 1960 the Turkish highway department was maintaining 14,450 miles of national roads and 13,182 miles of provincial roads. From 1940 to 1960, over 800 bridges were built on the national system and more than 400 on the provincial roads. In evaluating the Turkish program, the following assessment was made in a study prepared in 1962 by the Columbia University School of Law:
Financially, the extent of the aid hardly comes up to the level of the aid received by the other sectors and organizations in Turkey. Yet, the outstanding feature of the aid is that in this instance the technical assistance has been rendered directly by the Federal Bureau of Public Roads. Consequently, the technical aspect of the work done has been of the highest level. The fact that the organization was set up and put into operation by the U.S. experts has been the principal factor in the eventual success of the project.
Within a short time, the general Directorate of Highways has evolved into a first-class organization. So much so that today it is in a position to extend technical assistance to certain countries in the Middle East implementing highway-construction programs.
The aid extended to Turkey in connection with her highway program and the results achieved through that aid confirm the fact that, in the case of underdeveloped countries, technical aid is more important than financial and that it should be given priority.[1]
- ↑ Institution building is assisting in the development of a highway organization equipped with adequate laws and procedures and administered and operated by trained personnel. The ultimate desired result of technical assistance is to develop the capability of a country’s highway organization to administer, build, and maintain a highway system adequate to develop their economy and improve the standard of living.
Training Foreign Nationals
The Federal Highway Administration has always placed strong emphasis on training. The training of young engineers and construction operators in developing the roadbuilding capability in this country proved so significant that an initial emphasis in this area was naturally of high priority in all overseas projects also.
The first major applications of overseas training programs were undertaken in the projects in Turkey and the Philippines. Since then institution building through training has been a part of all technical assistance provided by FHWA. Because conditions in each country vary tremendously in facilities, educational level, and other factors, each overseas Division Office has been required to develop training programs specifically to meet the needs of that country.
A deficiency Bureau engineers noted in all overseas programs immediately after World War II was the lack of manuals or procedural guides. In order to overcome this, early in each program, a Bureau advisor assisted his local counterpart in preparing manuals to cover his specific technical field. These manuals were in the local language and were designed to fit conditions within that country. Practically all Bureau technical manuals and some State highway department manuals have been modified and issued in the language of the various countries. Thus, American design standards, planning techniques, material tests and specifications, and equipment practices have been adopted, in various degrees, throughout the world. The use of these manuals by the respective countries for both training and operations has been one of the greatest influences on the growth and development of their highway departments.
Major overseas programs where training was the key element for the successful establishment of a addition to Turkey and the Philippine Republic, in Ethiopia, Iran, and Laos. Less extensive programs were undertaken in Nepal, Lebanon, Sudan, Brazil, Bolivia, Kuwait, Jordan, Dominican Republic, and Cambodia.
While the overseas divisions carried out the greater portion of their training activities onsite, the need to train, in this country, staff engineers and administrators of foreign highway departments was also recognized. Since 1948, the Bureau has welcomed over 10,000 engineers and highway officials for various types of formal training programs.
In 1949 BPR and the Department of State decided to offer to groups of foreign engineers a formal course of lectures, discussions, demonstrations, and field trips. The course included 6 weeks of lectures and discussions in Washington, 2 weeks visiting equipment and automobile plants, and subsequent visits to various State highway departments where field operations and Federal-State cooperation could be observed. This program continued for 4 years, the final course being held in 1952.
By combining a relatively small group of specialists overseas with the extensive backup provided by the FHWA headquarters and field offices working in cooperation with State highway departments, FHWA has contributed much to assist the world in its struggle to expand economic development by opening new areas. Certainly the work of the FHWA around the world, through its use and teaching of American design standards and construction trades, has fulfilled Mr. MacDonald’s charge in 1925. It is, indeed, the finer statesmanship.
540
- ↑ Columbia University School of Law, Public International Development Financing In Turkey (Columbia University Press, New York, 1962) pp. 132, 133.
