Resource information
The aim of this paper is to provide
feedback on the question of socioeconomic benefits from
rural road development and the impact of transport
infrastructure on the poor, particularly the poorest and the
bottom 20 percent of the population. This paper relies on
impact evaluation methodologies, which are traditionally
used in social sectors but less so in the transport sector.
The study, including first surveys, was launched in 2003
under the Tocantins Sustainable Regional Development
Project. The paper highlights the context that led to the
project’s design, which included an impact evaluation of the
works envisaged under the project. The paper also highlights
some of the main challenges faced by this impact evaluation
and how these challenges were addressed for the present
study. It then provides details about the data collected
during the surveys and the key relevant characteristics of
the population targeted by the surveys. It discusses the
possible estimation methods envisioned to undertake the
study and provides the main results of the assessment based
on these methods. The analysis shows that improved rural
roads changed people’s transport modal choice. People used
more public buses and individual motorized vehicles after
the rural road improvements. The paper also finds that the
project increased school attendance, particularly for girls.
Although the evidence is relatively weak in statistical
terms, it indicates that the project contributed to
increasing agricultural jobs and household income in certain regions.
