**_Access. Road_** _density in terms of population (road-kilometers per 1,000 people)_ is twice the average for low income countries and higher than Middle East & North Africa, and East Asia Pacific. However, at 6.1 road-km per 1000 people it is only a third of the density of high income OECD countries and two-thirds of upper-middle income countries. Interestingly, Brazil has significantly higher road density in terms of population (10), while Indonesia and Malaysia score lower (1.7 and 2.8).  Road _density in terms of land (road-kilometers per 1,000 sq km)_ is low (227) when compared with many other groups and is only higher than that of SSA (155) and low income countries (181). It is much lower than in benchmark upper middle-income countries (328).  At the same time, it is important to recognize that these road density indicators for South Africa may be somewhat misleading in comparative perspective because of the specific territorial configuration of population density that is concentrated in comparatively small parts of an otherwise large national territory. To the extent that South Africa has lower than average population density and greater differences in the concentration of population and economic activity (parts of the country are very poorly inhabited with very little or no commercial activity) in different regions, the indicator may overstate the gap with comparator countries. For example, South Africa performance on density in terms of land appears similar to Brazil (203 road kilometers per 1,000 sq km)), another resource rich, coastal country with vast segments of the territory sparsely populated; similarly Indonesia and Malaysia also have very similar road density in terms of land (203 and 200 road kilometers per 1,000 sq km, respectively).<sup>9</sup> **_Rail_** _lines density in terms of population_ , by contrast, is very high when compared to SSA, Middle East & North Africa, South Asia, East Asia Pacific, and Latin America & the Caribbean.  It is slightly higher than the average for all middle income and just below the benchmark upper-income group. South Africa’ _rail lines density in terms of land,_ however, is far behind those in middle income and high income countries and is also behind South Asia but ahead of other groups. Similar qualification for the interpretation of road densitiy applies here as well.

**_Quality—technical._** According to the database, South Africa has one of the lowest percentages of paved roads at 21%. This is lower than SSA (25%) and low income countries (30%) and far behind upper middle income (57%) and high income countries (82%). This may reflect the legacy of the strong urban bias and the economic configuration of economic activity inherited from the Apartheid era. Four important caveats are in order here. First, local information on paved roads show a higher percentage (31%) that was already achieved in 1994 (Perkins et al. 2005); as of writing, we could not reconcile this with the number from the benchmarking database that on this indicator originates in the World Bank’s World Development Report 2004. But even if the 31% figure is taken at face value, while it would imply better performance in South Africa than in SSA region, it would remain worse than in upper middle-income countries. Second, the quality of the paved roads variable itself probably hides considerable cross-country variation: paved roads in South Africa may be of higher quality than those in most SSA countries, but this variation would presumably be much less relevant for the upper middleincome group. Third, the proportion of roads paved may hide a relatively well developed road network in terms of road kilometers (thus inflating the denominator of the proportion), though the preceding discussion puts some limits on this possibility. Fourth, given the semi-arid climate of South Africa, and the low population densities in large parts of South Africa’s geography, it is not clear what the optimal pave roads proportion might be. Nevertheless, irrespective of which proportion is used (21% or 31%), we note that that South Africa reports a lower proportion than

> 9 Euchache and Goicoechea (2005), Table A4-2, pp. 105-07.

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