Transport, the missing link?

A catalyst for achieving the MDGs

What do poor rural farmers do when the rainy season cuts off their access to markets? What do women in labour do when the nearest health clinic is 30 kilometres away and transport is virtually non-existent? How can girls attend school if the journey isn't safe? How do women provide for their families when the transport burden of domestic chores takes up potential income generating time?

Halving extreme hunger and poverty, reducing maternal mortality, achieving universal primary education, and empowering women are just four of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) with important access and transport implications. This issue of id21 insights shows how critical access and mobility issues are for achieving the MDGs by 2015.

The missing link

Transport is hardly mentioned in the MDGs either as a cause of or as a potential solution to poverty. Yet transport infrastructure and services have a strong influence on:

• timely and affordable delivery of basic services: health, education, water and sanitation
• facilitation of economic growth through international, regional and national trade
• empowerment of vulnerable groups such as women, by reducing time spent on domestic tasks
• links with the market economy and the outside world: transport connects communities to markets and information, puts isolated people in touch with services and representatives, sustains important social networks and enables freedom of movement.

In this issue of id21 insights, each article builds a picture of transport's catalytic role in creating greater access to employment opportunities, educational and health facilities, agricultural development, social inclusion and networking.

Making connections

Three quarters of the world's chronically hungry people live in rural areas. Enabling poor farmers to grow more food is an effective way to reduce hunger and poverty. Investing in transport infrastructure and services will:

• lower input prices
• increase agricultural production
• reduce agricultural traders' monopoly by improving access to markets

Food security is also determined by purchasing power and therefore by the level and location of employment opportunities. Investment in rural transport would improve access to employment opportunities and create employment. In this issue of id21 insights, Emilio Salomón shows that using microenterprises for rural road maintenance leads to higher incomes and purchasing power and to the development of non-farm enterprises.

Delivering and accessing basic services will also reduce poverty reduction. Gina Porter's article demonstrates how getting to school in rural areas costs time, energy and money - preventing children, particularly girls, and staff from attending.

Three MDGs focus on gender issues: promoting gender equality and empowerment of women, reducing child mortality, and improving maternal health. Priyanthi Fernando shows that there are few incentives for women to use available transport, despite the fact that they often have to walk long distances carrying heavy loads. Fernando highlights the fact that 'available' does not always translate into 'appropriate' or 'accessible' transport.

Health services aiming to reduce maternal and child mortality and the spread of HIV/AIDS, would benefit from the safe, timely and appropriate transport of patients, health personnel and medicines. Taye Berhanu's work in Ethiopia on the safe transportation of expectant mothers and a new research programme on Mobility and Health aims to give more visibility to these issues.

Better transport can have negative side effects, however, for example exacerbating the spread of HIV/AIDS, as Mac Mashiri's article shows. Transport can also open up rural areas to adverse environmental impacts such as illegal logging - with negative effects on the local economy and social capital. Luz Marina Monsalve Friedman describes local efforts in Choco, Colombia to stop destructive road building.

Transport planners have yet to fully consider environmental issues from a rural perspective, despite the impact that urban transport development has had on rural environments. Sustainable, environment-friendly transport solutions do exist for rural areas however, particularly where waterways and non-motorised methods of transport are available.

A new agenda for transport?

Transport and infrastructure are important issues on the development agenda but some bilateral donors are either opting out of transport spending or moving their transport expertise to other sectors, reflecting a shift to support for the MDGs. A large proportion of World Bank and International Monetary Fund lending is for infrastructure, particularly in middle income countries where there is less risk and more likelihood of long term maintenance. The regional banks also have a major interest in infrastructure although the focus is shifting from rural transport to urban priorities and intra-city and port linkages.

A wealth of knowledge is generated by international, regional and national initiatives that could help push forward a new agenda that tackles the relationship between rural accessibility and poverty. In India, for example the Prime Ministers Rural Roads Programme is setting nationwide targets for connecting rural and urban areas and is strengthening its focus on community participation to ensure sustainability.

Yet promoting transport services and integrating social development issues within transport planning remain a challenge. Donors need to realise that transport is integral to achieving the MDGs, and in rural areas in particular, appropriate types of transport, for example by river or using animals or bicycles can be as important as building roads.

While national and local governments are instrumental in providing investment, various non-governmental organisations such as the International Forum for Rural Transport and Development are pushing forward a new agenda for rural transport. Peter Njenga and Kate Czuczman discuss the need for policy choices that promote stakeholder involvement, sustainable funding mechanisms, and a development context in which rural transport is recognised as a central issue.

Transport ministers and donors need to:

• integrate gender perspectives into development policy, planning and implementation
• compile accurate and informative transport performance and impact indicators
• prioritise the sustainable construction and maintenance of rural roads
• evaluate the success or otherwise of local transport interventions
• concentrate on helping rural areas to develop transport systems that don't harm the environment as has happened in cities.

Danang Parikesit
Chairman, International Forum for Rural Transport and Development
Dan-dan@indo.net.id

Kate Czuczman
IFRTD Secretariat, 113 Spitfire Studios, 63-71 Collier Street, London N1 9BE, UK
kate.czuczman@ifrtd.org
T +44 (0)20 7713 6699
F +44 (0)207 713 8290
www.ifrtd.org

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