Poor households transport their water, their fuel, their food. They need transport to get to markets, jobs, and health clinics. The likelihood that the children of poor families will go to secondary school, especially daughters, is much higher if there are reliable and affordable transport services. Better transport facilitates poor people s participation in social and political processes. Without well-defined and effective transport policies and strategies, poor people will not be able to accumulate enough human, physical, financial, and social assets to get ahead.
Transport therefore has to be an integral part of a country s poverty reduction strategy.
Because transport has pervasive influences throughout a country s economy and social fabric it is hard to trace and measure the ultimate impacts of transport interventions on the welfare of poor households. Demand for transport is to a large extent derived from other sectors and have the greatest impact on poor people when other sectoral interventions are also adequately in place. Well-staffed health clinics have little impact on poor people who can not get to the clinics and vice versa. Section one outlines the objective of the chapter and stresses the importance of addressing both infrastructure and services in transport policies. It also stresses the importance of public accountability for poverty outcomes.