Rural access road upgrades unlock economic opportunities

Improving a country’s rural road infrastructure is a means of relieving poverty, according to Namibia’s minister of works and transport, Erkki Nghimtina. In his address, “Connecting Africa”, at the African Renaissance conference in Durban recently, he emphasised that “the improvement of rural access roads is broadly recognised as a fundamental precondition for the development of rural areas.” Nghimtina saw investment in this form of transport to be proven as a means to create economic opportunities for the poor. This directly through employment in infrastructure construction and maintenance, and the provision of rural transport services, and indirectly through improving the conditions and opportunities for marketing goods and services. Based on these presumptions, Nghimtina added, “there is no doubt that the investments in rural roads bring about substantial benefits for the poor and very poor of our peoples”. However, in many parts of Namibia and SA – where underemployment is a major problem particularly in rural areas – the governments suffer from a lack of financial capital. “Therefore,” said Nghimtina, “it may be more cost-effective to use labourintensive construction methods which benefit the poor directly through the opportunity that roads offer for employment in construction.”