Connectivity for Human Capital : Realizing the Right to Education and Healthcare through Improved Public Transport in African Cities
Despite having made tremendous progress in ensuring equal access to education and healthcare for its people, with school enrollment rates rising and children in most countries receiving the recommended preventative care, many countries in Sub-Sahar...
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2021
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/185131609774306027/Connectivity-for-Human-Capital-Realizing-the-Right-to-Education-and-Healthcare-Through-Improved-Public-Transport-in-African-Cities http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35185 |
| Summary: | Despite having made tremendous progress
in ensuring equal access to education and healthcare for its
people, with school enrollment rates rising and children in
most countries receiving the recommended preventative care,
many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) remain at the
bottom of the World Bank’s Human Capital Index and the
United Nations (UN) Human Development Index. The existing
data also suggests that women are being overlooked in the
drive to develop human capital, and only slightly over half
of all primary school students continue schooling until
lastgrade. Issues of access loom large; millions of children
are not in school at all. This study aims to shine light on
the extent to which the national level commitments to
ensuring education and health for all are reflected in
concrete transport, education, and health sector policies
and targets at the country and city level and, in turn,
whether the reality on the ground in some of the major
urbanized areas in SSA is one of equal and adequate access.
Focusing on ten large cities across SSA and applying not
only spatial modeling tools but also policy and survey
analysis and insights from interviews with human rights and
development practitioners working in the region, the study
provides new evidence on the degree to which health and
education opportunities can be physically reached using the
existing fixed route public transport systems. In doing so,
it also identifieswho is being left behind – both across the
urban space as well as across different dimensions of
marginalization such as poverty, disability, gender, or
their intersection. Because of the focus on public transport
modes – mostly buses and minibuses – and walking, the
results should therefore be interpreted as relevant for
most, but not all, of the city populations, as accessibility
by private cars or motorcycles is likely be higher although
will certainly come up against congestion constraints if all
or even most people were to rely on these modes. Recognizing
that the use of health servicesand ability to meaningfully
take advantage of education opportunities may be only partly
driven by physical access barriers, the study also
highlights the broader constraints faced by certain
marginalized groups. Awareness of the role of transport
connectivity and improved transport and land use planning
coordination in facilitating access to essential services is
noted in nearly all of the Government-level – both national
and city-specific – policy documents and future strategies.
At the same time, the differentiated education and
healthcare access needs of the more vulnerable society
groups – and targeted strategies on how to serve them – have
received less attention, and the definition of
sector-specific goals is not commonly informed by analysis
of the existing spatial patterns of exclusion. |
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