Making transport a driver for development in Africa

AlphaGalileo via York University: A new report by a panel of international experts highlights policies to improve air quality road safety and congestion, supporting African development. Transport is playing a big role in delivering economic development to Africa. But as the demand for transport grows and cities expand, policy makers need to tackle transport challenges to make sure that all parts of society can benefit from this central driver of jobs and growth.

“Transport policies in Africa are of critical importance to the delivery of sustainable cities, healthy citizens and poverty eradication,” says Dr Dieter Schwela from Stockholm Environment Institute at the University of York. “This new report synthesizes knowledge on current trends, key issues and challenges facing policy makers and provides examples of best practice and case studies from African countries and internationally.”

Road safety is extremely poor compared with the rest of the world with Africa accounting for over 10 per cent of global road fatalities.  As urban populations in Sub Saharan African countries continue to expand at unprecedented rates, traffic congestion is increasing with some cities approaching gridlock.

Urban air and noise pollution is also worsening, particularly as result of the increase in numbers of vehicles and their associated emissions. Lack of air quality monitoring, emission standards and regulatory procedures exacerbate the problems. This has serious implications in terms of health and equity as well as thwarting economic development. Rapidly rising greenhouse gas emissions from the transport sector are also a cause for concern....

A road in Mauritania, shot by Boulmaouahibe, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license