Main Programme Areas

Agriculture

What do you do as a poor rural farmer when you don't have year-round access to a physical market due to lack of appropriate transport services or infrastructure? And did you know that currently, 70% of the agricultural output of Sub-saharan Africa is headloaded, mainly by women who make up the majority of agricultural smallholders? Also, in light of the current food crisis, a small survey carried out by the International Fund for Agricultural Development has illustrated that in Mozambique, food price increases have clearly followed increases in transportation costs and this has had a detrimental impact on food production and consumption.

Three quarters of the world's chronically poor and hungry people live in rural areas and rely on agriculture to feed themselves and their families. Agriculture remains the backbone of many economies in developing countries and not one country has managed a rapid improvement in poverty levels without increasing agricultural productivity. It has been necessary for this increase in productivity to go hand-in-hand with investments in rural infrastructure and effective rural transport systems in order to improve the value chain and ensure that products are marketed in an efficient and effective way.

So far, the majority of rural and agricultural development programmes have concentrated on increasing agricultural production in an environment that is hampered by extremely limited access to markets and other services. This has resulted in these programmes having a limited impact on growth and poverty reduction; In the few cases where programmes have invested in transport infrastructure (mainly roads) the improvements have been significant. In the IFAD funded access road component within the Zambian Smallholder Enterprise Development and Marketing Programme (SHEMP), the number of traders doubled in the 5 year programme (2002 - 2007) and the price of Maize in the area increased by 50%. In another IFAD funded project in Bangladesh, a labour-based roads programme led to an increase of 19% in agricultural yield and a reduction in transport costs of 39%.

More recently, the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) has initiated a comprehensive review (1994 - 2006) of the investments they have made in rural transport and travel within their agricultural programmes. Prompted by their country programmes, the review's main objective was to take stock of the achievements, lessons learnt, experiences and impacts of the investments.

Some of the preliminary findings of the review, shared during a joint IFAD, IFRTD and ILO workshop in Rome on 24-25 June 2008, are that despite significant investments of an average of 13 million USD a year (constituting 7% of all market access interventions), so far the overall performance is unsatisfactory. This is mainly due to the following reasons:

(1) The lack of a systematic approach to RTT in agricultural programmes.

(2) A lack of integrated planning

(3) A strong focus on road construction and rehabilitation

References :

Agricultural Development at the Gates Foundation

Andreski, Adam, 2007. "Market Access Improvement in Zambia." Technical paper. (MS Word 379 kb)

IFAD_ILO_IFRTD Workshop on Rural Roads, Transportation and Travel, Workshop, Rome, 24-25 June, 2008. For full report proceedings please click here. (4.4 Mb. Pdf)

World Bank, 2007 “ Roundtable on Mainstreaming Social and Gender Dimensions in Transport Programs: Moving the Agenda Forward .” World Bank, Washington DC

Health

The significant contribution of transport and mobility to the development and the livelihoods of poor people is widely recognised. However, the development sector is yet to fully acknowledge and understand the role of transport in improving poor people’s health. In the context of the need to step up development activity to meet the Millennium Development Goals, a better understanding of the relationship between mobility and health becomes a priority.

Transport can have both a positive and negative impact on poor people’s health. Improving transport infrastructure and services has the potential to increase poor people’s access to health services, enable better servicing of health outposts, increase the flow of health information and can facilitate the movement of health extension workers. Improved access can also help improve the accessibility of safe water supplies, which has positive consequences for the health of communities. These factors, in turn, contribute to reducing morbidity and mortality, to increasing awareness about reproductive issues, and to improving livelihoods and reducing poverty. For example the construction of feeder roads providing motorized transport connecting 45 villages in the Darfur region of Sudan are reported to have influenced measurable impacts on community health, such as a rise in immunization of children. The study found that road provision enabled the equipping and supply of health outlets, and that access to services and technologies was further improved by a concurrent revolving drug fund.

The experience with the spread of HIV/AIDS has dramatically shown that improving access and mobility can also have strong negative impacts. Developing transport corridors for long-distance goods transport often results in changing patterns of sexual activity, an increase in the number of sexual partners and the diffusion of HIV. Many large-scale transport sector programmes and initiatives that work on combating the spread of HIV/AIDS are now working to address this problem through awareness training of transport workers and sex workers along these corridors.

As a global network of members interested in the social aspects of rural transport issues, the IFRTD acknowledges that there is a need to demonstrate and document the strong linkages between Mobility and Health. To this end, a workshop was held in Bern in November 2004, organised by TransNet (the network of Swiss professionals working in the transport sector in developing countries) in collaboration with IFRTD, and supported by the Mobility and Health desks of the Social Development Division of SDC, along with inputs from the Swiss Centre for International Health, transport and health specialists – mainly from the south - discussed some less-known yet important issues relating to mobility and health. Following on from this workshop the same partners have organised a major collaborative network research programme bringing together 20 researchers from Africa, Asia and Latin America to examine the relationship between mobility and health, particularly in relation to MDG 5 - a 75% reduction in maternal mortality by 2015. For more information on the various events and programmes see Resources below.

KEY RESOURCES:

Mobility and Health - An IFRTD International Networked Research Programme 2006 - 2007 . Click here for more information about the programme, its outputs and other mobility and health links and resources.

Workshop on Mobility and Health , Bern, Switzerland. November 2004. Click here for more information and the full workshop report.

Mobility and Health: The Impact of Transport Provision on direct and Proximate Determinants of Access to Health Services . An article by Dr Kate Molesworth, Swiss Tropical Institute. January 2006. Click here to download (Word Doc 2.98MB - PLEASE NOTE THIS IS A LARGE DOWNLOAD)

Safety and Security

safety-and-securityMobility in rural transport in developing countries largely involves walking and the use of intermediate means of transport (IMTs) in the form of bicycles, animal drawn carts and boats. In all these modes of travel there are both safety and security risks. Safety risks are usually seen in terms of accidents resulting in injuries, death or damage to IMTs or vehicles. Security risks can include cases of criminality in transport for example piracy on waterways. This article will focus on safety rather than security in rural transport.

There is little that is reported about accidents in rural transport compared to urban transport. There are arguments that since rural transport involves relatively slower speeds safety is not an important issue. However rural development can be seen to depend significantly on rural transport safety. For example in Uganda health workers and teachers are reluctant to work in the islands of Lake Victoria due to unsafe water vessels, compromising the quality of basic services that can be delivered to local communities.

One reason for the lack of interest in rural transport issues is that there is no formalised method of data collection. Currently data is collected by the Police, Insurance and Health Centers, whose surveillence in rural areas is low leading to under-reporting. There are also concerns about the kind of data collected by these institutions which can be subjective to their institutional needs. For example in the case of a local health centre an accident victim may be classified as an injury rather than specifying a water or road accident. The data also fails to adequately capture issues such as community perceptions of safety, changes in quality of life following accidents, and the communities own responses to safety problems. Without which data planners are unlikely to develop effective accident eduction programmes.

Another concern is insurance, rural people are too poor to insure themselves and their IMTs, and their vehicles and vessels are in any case in too poor condition to qualify for insurance cover. In addition few people know what insurance is and are unaware of victim compensation procedures when accidents do occur.

Rural transport safety issues need to be seen in a much wider perspective, including not only vehicular collision but also ongoing unsafe transport conditions which can lead to injury or death. For example although walking is regarded as a safe mode of travel it includes the risk of stumbling, falling, injury from thorns, or attack by animals. Similarly cyclists risk falling due to slippery surfaces or loss of balance.

To an extent rural transport safety hinges on rural infrastructure, this is particularly seen in the provision of facilities such as bridges, or enlarged pavements for IMT use. The improved condition of infrastructure therefore contributes to the safety of users.

As is seen with urban transport there is a need to improve both the surveillance and enforcement of safety regulations. Often local authorities/police are concerned that regulations do not effectively cover IMTs and therefore it is difficult to prosecute offenders. The consequence of this is a reluctance to enforce regulations. There are also cases of political interference with regard to the enforcement of regulations which are seen as harassing poor people rather than improving their safety.

Awareness of rural safety issues is required at user, planning and policy levels. Improved data collection on transport safety issues should be developed, promoted and anchored within rural development programmes across different sectors eg. health or fishing. More research is needed and institutions and universities should be supported to initiate this.

Overview contributed by Paul Kwamusi of the Uganda Transport Forum Group.
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Rural Transport

1Introduction

For a long time, building roads in rural areas was considered as one of the main solutions to promote economic and social development through improved access to markets, social facilities, and better information flows. However for many developing countries this strategy has proven insufficient, often because little attention is paid to essential Rural Transport Services (RTS). As a result, RTS in most developing countries are underdeveloped and in most cases unreliable and expensive, posing a serious impediment to reaping the benefits of network and/or road improvements. The overall benefits of improved rural transport will not be realised unless road, waterways and to some extent railway transport services are also improved and sustained.

Sustainable RTS aims to connect urban and rural areas and in most instances involve transport terminals/bus stations/stops. These often play a multiple role involving various means and sometimes different modes of transport, such as in, for example, multi-modal rural hubs which is a new perspective for RTS planning (see below).

Designing appropriate RTS interventions requires a holistic understanding of the mechanisms through which rural transport services are provided and used in the rural economy of developing countries. Affordability, reliability and/or efficiency are all factors at play in designing appropriate transport services in general but in a rural context additional aspects have to be considered as is explained below.

As a first step Rural Transport Patterns and Surveys are an important tool to better capture the availability and needs for transport services in a particular rural area, starting at the basic household level. Integrated planning methodologies, such as Integrated Rural Accessibility Planning to design RTS must meet the needs of all end-users while at the same time consider the overall context and regulatory framework. Obviously, an integrated RTS assesses both supply and demand, aiming to reduce the existing gap between supply – through appropriate means of transport – and the existing demand.

In general demand is based on the economic, financial and social needs of transport users including any specific requirements of women, marginalised and/or vulnerable groups, such as People with Disabilities. Low demand, short journeys, and the limited ability of rural passengers to pay for transport services are general causes for an inadequate RTS coverage. And when the services do exist they are often unreliable and expensive, poorly planned, scarce (in terms of number of vehicles), resulting in high rural transport costs and service gaps. From the operators side rural transport services are in most cases unprofitable and therefore do not attract new investments on the supply side.

In designing appropriate RTS issues like equity, gender, and governance need to be assessed. These factors may lie outside the ‘traditional’ scope of economic analyses but will contribute to successful outcomes. The more traditional factors are topography, agro-ecological zones, farming systems, population density, economic development, remoteness, income levels, ethnicity, culture and transport systems in general. These can all influence the quality and nature of RTS as well as the overall supply and demand.

trafficcount In 2005 a team of IFRTD members led by Paul Starkey developed and tested a rapid assessment methodology for the Sub Saharan Africa Transport Program of the World Bank (SSATP). This methodology surveys transport types, operators, users and regulators at sampled hubs and spokes, stratified by hub hierarchy and remoteness.

While survey details are adapted to specific contexts, the methodology envisages an administrative province/region (5-10% of the country) with a distinct transport catchment area. This area will contain a finite number of hubs, perhaps one regional hub, 5-20 market hubs and 1000 village hubs.

Motorised transport services travel to and from urban hubs. Therefore questioning transport users, operators and authorities at the regional capital and three market towns yields an overview of transport services, prices and constraints. Participative interviews in 5 villages, stratified for remoteness, provide further insights on the transport needs of users, including farmers, traders, employees, housewives, schools, health services, and marginalised people. Traffic counts (including IMTs and pedestrians) are made on village, market and regional spokes.

Over two months the methodology provides a rapid, inexpensive overview of rural transport, highlighting key constraints, stakeholder views and proposals for improvements.

RTS06 DraftFinalReport80 Click below to download the draft project report by Paul Starkey et al (March 2006)
Download (Acrobat 1.53MB)




The Ngware Bicycle Transport Youth Group is the brainchild of four young men who completed their education and then found themselves jobless. Their major goal was to be able to earn a living by providing both cargo and passenger services, using bicyles. They reached this decision after realising that the residents of the area they lived in faced serious transport problems, especially during rainy seasons. This area is served by a few murrum roads. These become muddy during wet seasons, making it almost impossible for motor vehicles to use them. In 1991 they set up a group in Chiga Market which is in the Eastern side of Kisumu in Nyanza Province.

The group began with well defined objectives and strategies. Over the years as its membership has grown from 4 persons to over 10,000 it has also had to develop a clear organisational structure.

This is an extract from a paper entitled Cycle-based transport services in Kenya. The Ngware Bicyle Transporters Youth Group, By Naboth Juma Okoth, November 2005. (published by Schorrell Analysis Engineering Publications.

The paper details the development of the Ngware Bicycle Transporters Youth Group including operational aspects, the organisational structure of the group, financing, social benefits and the challenges they face.

The full paper can be accessed here http://base.google.com/base/items?oid=17147856190312170490 or by emailing This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

In an effort to ensure that transport practitioners in French-speaking Africa can also share experiences IFRTD – with the support of gTKP - has set up a French electronic discussion group called IFRTD Transport Rural. Set up on dgroups, the list serv is accessible via http://www.dgroups.org/groups/IFRTDtransportrural and is open for all (French-speaking) people interested in rural transport issues.

During three weeks in July a virtual discussion was held focussing on issues relating to rural transport services. The discussion centred around three issues.

  1. What type of technology is best suited for what means of transport?
  2. Improvements and the reliability of rural transport services
  3. Rural transport safety

Each week centred around one of these issues and every topic was introduced with background information, photos and sub-questions to allow the participants to share experiences, ask questions and trigger discussions. Moderated by Vero Razafintsalama from Lalana, an NGO based in Madagascar and specialised in transport issues, twenty-seven participants from eleven different countries followed and/or participated in the rich and lively virtual debates.

The first week focussed on issues around preferences, adopted technology related to transport needs. In Madagascar for example there have been successful bicycle interventions that were initially meant for transporting people and instead were increasingly used for transporting heavy goods over long distances. This was done without any adaptation and resulted in visible improvements in income for certain users.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) it was noted that the existing hypothesis about increased motorised traffic after rehabilitation of rural roads proved false. Instead they observed that bicycle usage increased and were the main IMTs from villages and/or fields to the main road where big trucks were waiting to be loaded. In addition some traders preferred to travel by truck themselves while their cargo was transported on bicycles. ‘Bicycles are faster and can leave at once, while trucks have to wait until full’ was the logical explanation. As a local adaptation bicycles were lengthened to carry up to 200 kilos heavy load or a small sun umbrella to protect the cyclist from the harsh sun. It was common that the trader would walk alongside the bicycle often for long distances.

In North Cameroon the complementarity of various transport services was especially noteworthy. Buses operated by the municipality served very precise routes while taxis served outlying areas of the locality. The motorbikes served to extend the bus and taxi routes by serving more isolated zones. This complementarity also applied to costs and transport of cargo

The participants also discussed the various modes to transport the sick to health clinics. The pro’s and con’s of motorbike ambulances versus bicycle ambulances were discussed and various experiences of Ranger and Riders for Health shared.

Overall the discussions illustrated the big knowledge gap that exists between Francophone and Anglophone Africa and that not enough resources are available for translation and knowledge sharing through workshops. A positive development is the SDC/Skat workshop that was organised in Chad in September 2007 to enable French-speaking transport experts to network and share experiences. This workshop combined with the new list serv will hopefully help reduce the gap a little but it is obvious that a lot more resources need to be invested in order to close the gap completely!

To join the discussions:

http://www.dgroups.org/groups/IFRTDtransportrural

Contacts

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Contact Person: Peter Njenga
Position: Executive Director and Coordinator East and Southern Africa
Tel/Fax: +254 (20) 883323
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