Connections Transport & ICT A New Measure of Rural Access to Transport 102767 Using GIS Data to Inform Decisions and Attainment of the SDGs Atsushi Iimi and Adam Diehl 13.5 In rural areas of the developing world, where the majority of the poor live, good transport connectivity through road infrastructure and transport services is an essential part of the enabling environment for sustainable growth. A lack of detailed nationwide data million has limited previous efforts to develop measures of The estimated number of access to roads in rural areas that would guide policy rural residents in Kenya and investment. The World Bank, with support from (43%) without access to an all-season road, based on DFID, has been piloting a methodology that exploits preliminary results advances in digital technology to assess population distribution and infrastructure location and quality. The resulting Rural Access Index (RAI) may serve as a useful and cost effective tool for governments planning their rural transport programs and as an indicator of progress towards the achievement of several of the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets Rural Poverty, Road Data, and the Yet, a consistent and replicable method for mea- suring the accessibility of transport infrastructure SDGs has been lacking. The need for it will be crucial for In the developing world, and especially in Africa, measuring progress toward several SDG targets a lack of road access isolates farmers from mar- that rely directly or indirectly on rural accessibility kets, thus keeping the vast majority of agricultural to transport. For instance, SDG 9 (Build resilient production at the subsistence level. For the same infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable reason, the strength of manufacturing and other industrialization and foster innovation) is directly local businesses in remote and isolated areas often related to rural transport access. SDG 2 aims to lags behind that of well-connected counterparts. “end hunger, achieve food security and improved In the short term, enhancing rural road connectiv- nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture.” ity reduces transport costs and improves access And SDG Target 2.3 is a doubling of “the agricul- to markets and social facilities such as schools and tural productivity and incomes of small-scale food hospitals. In the longer term, it raises agricultural producers … through secure and equal access productivity, business profitability, and employ- to ... productive resources and inputs,” an aim ment. clearly reliant on improved access to rural roads (see Connections Note #20). OCTOBER 2015 NOTE 23 The Household Survey Approach are revealing the highly varied status of rural connectivity in a given country (see the 2009 An initial Rural Access Index (RAI) introduced in World Development Report). Such a highly 2005 primarily used household surveys to estimate localized level of detail provides the factual road accessibility, defined population as living support for government decisions on how to within 2 kilometers of an all-season road. Applied in prioritize new construction and maintenance. Africa, this measure found that more than 70 per- cent of the continent’s rural population, or about Preliminary Results 450 million people, lacked road accessibility in rural areas. Eight countries, in Africa and South Asia, are currently testing the new RAI methodology, and The survey methodology was the source of several preliminary estimates are available for Kenya and weaknesses in the RAI. Besides being difficult and Mozambique.1 In Kenya, the national RAI of 57 per- costly to conduct and update, household surveys cent means that about 13.5 million rural residents cannot provide both consistent and extensive data are unconnected to an all-season road. In Mozam- on road conditions. For instance, a 2010 household bique, where the national RAI has been estimated survey in Tanzania covered only 3,917 households at 19 percent, about 14.5 million rural residents lack in 409 villages in the country’s vast land area of access. At the subnational level, access in rural 950,000 km2. Hence, it is easy to imagine access areas varies from less than 5 percent to nearly 100 improvements that will never be captured by sub- percent. sequent surveys. Even at this preliminary stage, the richer detail in Development of a New Methodology the GIS-based index on road locations and condi- tions is suggesting policy-relevant conclusions. The World Bank, with the support of DFID, is devis- For instance, Kenya could attain an RAI of nearly ing a new, GIS-based RAI that exploits advances 100 by upgrading and maintaining its existing road in digital technology. The aim is to create a more network. In Mozambique, however, greater access accurate, operationally relevant and cost effective will require extensive construction of new roads or RAI that will also aid in monitoring improvements in upgrading of unclassified roads, as well as rehabili- accessibility. As in the original survey methodology, tating existing routes. access to transport is defined as the share of the rural population living within 2 km of the nearest With the subnational level of the results, the strong all-season road. correlation between the RAI and development has been confirmed, which makes it directly relevant to The GIS-based RAI is grounded on three principles: the SDGs and the poverty reduction agenda. The RAI has also proven relevant for connectivity to a • Sustainability. The new RAI relies primarily on variety of services and destinations. The standard- government-owned data. Doing so fosters cli- ized and digital nature of the new GIS-based RAI ent countries’ ownership, which in turn moti- will allow for the rapid inclusion of many access vates sustainability and regular updating. targets such as schools, hospitals, markets, ports • Consistency. Consistency across countries is and other destinations. critical if the RAI is to serve as a global indica- tor and as a measure of achievement for of the 1 In addition to Kenya and Mozambique, the methodology is being SDGs. Ensuring consistency has entailed trans- tested in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Nepal, Uganda and Zambia. lating country standards into a coherent global standard and checking the robustness of the For more information on this topic: RAI against differing definitions and assump- https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for- tions. While a small number of inconsistencies international-development will be unavoidable, others will be resolved. http://afcap.org/SitePages/Home.aspx • Operational relevance. The new RAI will https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/topics provide highly disaggregated information to http://www.worldbank.org/transport/transportresults/headline/ policymakers. New geospatial technologies rural-access.html Connections is a weekly series of knowledge notes from the World Bank Group’s Transport & Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Global Practice. Covering projects, experiences, and front-line developments, the series is produced by Nancy Vandycke and Shokraneh Minovi. The notes are available at http://www.worldbank.org/transport/connections. OCTOBER 2015 NOTE 23