IFRTD Regional Coordinator Peter Njenga on the Significance of the New Makete Website

Rural Transport and Development: A View of the Future from the Past

by IFRTD Regional Coordinator for East and Southern Africa, Peter Njenga

IFRTD has developed a new website www.maketetree.org that aims at providing a depository of knowledge on rural transport and development. The website provides a platform for debates and resources that can help us to continuously reflect on the future of rural transport and its linkages to wider development outcomes.

The name of the website is inspired by the Makete Integrated Rural Transport Project (MIRTP) which was a pioneering pilot project that helped incubate, develop and disseminate key insights into the state of transport and travel in a typical rural area of a developing country. MIRTP was implemented in the District of Makete, Tanzania from 1985 to 1996. The project applied an innovative action-research approach that eventually led to a unified framework for understanding the various constraints to access and mobility in rural areas of developing countries, and their links to poverty. MIRTP came into being at a time when building comparatively high standard rural access/feeder roads was seen as the most effective way of resolving rural transport problems.

In pursuit of its core mandate of networking, sharing and advancing knowledge in rural transport and development, IFRTD, in collaboration with the ILO and Tanzania Forum Group, organized a workshop in October 2008, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, with a view of reviewing progress made in the field of Rural Transport since the implementation of MIRTP, and key challenges and opportunities going into the future.

Finding the way into the future

Over the last 20 years, rural transport and travel has increasingly become established as a research policy and knowledge area within the wider field of transportation planning. For those better acquainted in the subject area, we probably stand accused of using the term Rural Transport rather flippantly, assuming its meaning to be self evident. As a matter of fact, the tendency to use the short hand “Rural Transport” – bereft of the all essential adjunct - and development – invariably invokes a meaning of rural roads construction.

What is central in our view of transport is that improvements in physical infrastructure are important but not sufficient to support the development outcomes that are envisaged through such investments.

As we continue to grow this area of transportation planning, it is important that the linkages between transport and development become the center-piece of making this field a more wholesome discipline. IFRTD and many other organizations working in this field have tried to maintain this focus by drawing attention to linkages between transport and poverty reduction, transport and Millennium Development Goals, transport and health etc.

In order for Rural Transport to become a more dynamic force for rural transformation, it needs to continuously adjust to new development challenges while being a part of new opportunities. Although Makete gave us some enduring insights into the state of rural transport and travel, a lot of changes have taken place globally, nationally and sub-nationally with an impact on our notion of “rurality” and the way development happens. The penetration of ICTs and mobile telephony in every corner of the world has changed the reality of remoteness and isolation. The ascendancy of the private sector as a key service provider has accelerated the pace of low cost, efficient transport technologies, including road construction technologies. Globalisation and urbanization have led to among other things – increased demand for food and horticultural products. Globalisation has also led to a new governance architecture that demands accountability in such areas as climate change and progress towards achievement of MDGs.

It’s our view that rural transport is not a concept frozen in time. It is a dynamic paradigm that is embracing new economic and technological innovations connecting to wider development processes taking place locally, nationally and internationally.

We welcome your contribution in terms of thought pieces, publications and other resources that can make the Makete website a useful and lively tool for all those committed to advance the role of rural transport in achieving poverty eradication and sustainable development.