According to government sources, Ethiopia made huge investments in the development of roads to connect rural and urban centers and to the outside world as well. In the last 15 years the government allocated about 12.2 billion USD. However, despite the flourishing of investment, some argue that Ethiopia’s rural transport has still remained low and there are several gaps in meeting the demand.
As the main road is far from the scattered settlement, the majority of the poor are still barred from the modern transport service and use human and animal labor as means of transport.
Naod Mekonnen is an economist working as a private consultant. As to him, road transport is a major means of transportation in the country which serves for about 90 percent of motorized inter urban – rural and foreign destiny freight and passenger movements.
He further said that Ethiopia is land locked and the availability of navigable rivers is negligible, hence the role of road transportation is vital both for domestic and international transport services.
It is understood that 85 percent of the population live in the rural part engaged in agriculture and this indicates how road transportation has a potential demand which attracts enormous investment. In addition, the expansion of roads gave ways for the emergence of other infrastructures such as education, health, energy and telephone facilities that could change the livelihood of the rural population for the better.
Currently, asphalt and gravel roads constitute only 15301 km which is 15 percent of the total network. This is relatively very small compared to the nation’s 1.1 million square kilometer land mass and the approximately 105 million population. This also clearly shows that there is a lot to do to meet the growing population demand in attaining socio economic progress.
According to the recent Ethiopian Road Authority report, in the rural part of the country 40.5 percent of the area is 5 kilometers far from the main road. As a result, close to 70 percent of the rural population still needs to travel about 6 hours to reach all weather roads.
Most rural roads are dry weather roads inconvenient to vehicles to move in the wet season and hampers the sector activities.
The proportion of rural population within the radius of 2km to the main road is only 28.8 percent which is very small. The official report also indicates that the level of geographical mobility of the population is very insignificant and they mainly relied on pack animals and carrying their farming products to the nearby markets by their head and backs which makes the transaction cost of goods very high.
Looking the other way round, it has another drawback. That means, the majority of the rural population hardly access industrial products which can be used as inputs to their agriculture such as fertilizer, pest and herbicides. In addition, the situation inhibits farmers from getting products used for household purposes.
Since the launching of the Rural Sustainable Development program in 2015, the issues of access to roads have been associated with the nation’s development policies and strategies.
According to Naod, the various sectoral policies and strategies of the government have considered that access to all weather roads has been taken as a solution to address the chronic poverty in rural areas.
In its transformation ambition launched in 2015 by the government planned connecting most fragmented rural settlements with all-weather roads through the construction of 11,212km in the country and out of this, to construct 71523km in the rural parts of the country.
The Ministry of Finance reported that the countries over all road network reached to85, 966 and 37 percent of it constructed in rural areas.
Rural roads construction also has economic implications. It has played a crucial role in expanding extension programs and agricultural packages which reduce poverty. It also raises farmers’ consumption which again integrates farmers with the whole economy.
In fact, in Ethiopia constructing asphalt or gravel roads are not easy and have no short- term return.
The ruggedness and terrain of the geographical landscape made the construction very expensive. In addition, it is capital intensive and utilizes high tech. Construction of bridges in the various parts of the country with a viable sewerage system further incurs high cost.
Currently, the Ethiopian Road Authority allocates a huge amount of money for the construction. But mostly due to unfulfilling of the requirement for construction, local contractors fail to win the bid and often foreign companies take the upper hand to hand over the construction work.
The delay of the construction due to various factors such as dispute settlement with various stakeholders particularly to remove properties in the nearby areas and demolishing of residential houses further complicates the matter. On the other hand, changing of design due to environmental and technical factors put additional cost.
Nevertheless, it is an undeniable fact that road construction has brought a tremendous impact on the nation›s economic development.
Evidence showed that, because of the construction and expansion of all-weather roads and use of modern transportation, rural communities in Ethiopia were able to get different levels of accessibility and geographical and social mobility.
However, as preparation of land, plowing, harvesting and post harvesting work is totally utilized, human labor is the dominant means of transportation in farming activities. The big distance between farmers’ settlement areas and their plots also magnifies the value of manual transportation in the rural part. This, in turn, overshadows the impact of road expansion on agricultural and rural development.
In sum, road played crucial role in rural connecting urban centers to the rural part in which brought positive
Outcome in socioeconomic spear but to bring a multi -dimensional growth which touches farmers living, integrative measures should be taken.
BY ABEBE WOLDE GIORGIS
The Ethiopian Herald 31 October 2021
