TY - BOOK ID - 133403858 TI - Revising the Roads Investment Strategy in Rural Areas : An Application for Uganda AU - Raballand, Gael AU - Macchi, Patricia AU - Merotto, Dino AU - Petracco, Carly PY - 2009 PB - Washington, D.C., The World Bank, DB - UniCat KW - Access roads KW - Accessibility KW - Affordable transport KW - Means of transport KW - Mode of transport KW - Modes of transport KW - Population density KW - Road KW - Road building KW - Road conditions KW - Road improvement KW - Road network KW - Road quality KW - Roads KW - Rural infrastructure KW - Rural roads KW - Transport KW - Transport Economics, Policy and Planning KW - Transportation KW - Transportation costs KW - Travel time UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:133403858 AB - Based on extensive data collection in Uganda, this paper demonstrates that the rural access index, as defined today, should not be a government objective because the benefit of such investment is minimal, whereas achieving rural accessibility at less than 2 kilometers would require massive investments that are not sustainable. Taking into account the fact that plot size is limited on average to less than 1 hectare, a farmer's transport requirement is usually minimal and does not necessarily involve massive investments in infrastructure. This is because most farmers cannot fully load a truck or pay for this service and, even if productivity were to increase significantly, the production threshold would not be reached by most individual farmers. Therefore, in terms of public policy, maintenance of the existing rural roads rather than opening new roads should be given priority; the district feeder road allocation maintenance formula should be revised to take into account economic potential and, finally, policy makers should devote their attention to innovative marketing models from other countries where smallholder loads are consolidated through private-based consolidators. ER -