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 40 percent of the population. This study relies on
impact evaluation methodologies, which are traditionally
used in social sectors but less so in the transport sector.
These methodologies were launched in 2003 under the
Tocantins sustainable regional development project. This
paper highlights the context that led to the project’s
design, which included an impact evaluation of the works
envisaged under the project. It 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 came
to use 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.
