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This is the half-yearly electronic news bulletin of SDC’s Mobility desk. We are sending this message to people we believe are involved or interested in transport related subjects and initiatives. Feel free to forward this mailing to your colleagues. Subscription issues are handled at http://www.trans-web.ch/news.htm.
This medium lives through interaction. You are invited to send us your articles, requests and information flashes to transweb[at]skat.ch. The editors are grateful for any contributions received!
Translation assistance / Aide à la traduction / Ayuda de la traducción: http://babelfish.altavista.com
Contents:
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NEWS |
IFRTD: new Executive Secretary and new status
Maria Arce Moreira has been appointed as the new Executive Secretary of the International Forum for Rural Transport and Development (IFRTD) and will take up her post with the IFRTD Secretariat in London on the 10th August 2009. Maria’s professional qualifications include an MSc on Urban Environmental Management from Wageningen University (the Netherlands), and civil engineering studies with a focus on transport engineering from Bolivia. She brings with her to the Forum a wealth of experience and expertise in networking and advocacy in the development sector, and most recently she has been a Policy Advisor at Practical Action. Maria replaces Marinke van Riet who left the IFRTD Secretariat after 4 years.
As the IFRTD is making progress towards its independence from current host Practical Action, the newly elected Board of Directors met earlier this year (25th - 27th February, 2009) to agree upon operational principles following the adoption of the new governance structure. The Board adopted a new financial and human resources policy and the Business Plan 2009-2011, and agreed to carry out a risk assessment on IFRTD. It also signed many forms to set up IFRTD as a company limited by guarantee seeking charitable status. After 17 years of functioning as an unincorporated association the Board could announce the birth of IFRTD as a company based in England under registration number 6835743. SDC is a core supporter of the Forum since the establishment of a secretariat in 1995.
For further information about IFRTD, its new Executive Secretary and its new status, see http://www.ifrtd.org.
Swiss-Nepali consortium appointed as support consultants for the Rural Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Sector Development Program (RRRSDP)
The Government of Nepal with grant assistances of ADB and DFID, loan assistance of the OPEC Fund for International Development and a technical assistance grant of SDC is undertaking the RRRSDP since January 2009. The project runs until end of 2011 and the total cost of the project is USD 106.8 million. RRRSDP is designed to reduce rural poverty in hill, mountain, and terai (lowlands) districts of Nepal where isolation and hardship are common. This program will focus on immediate post conflict development priorities for accelerated poverty reduction and inclusive development and will improve connectivity, enhance economic and employment opportunities, and increase access to market and social services by rural communities. The project outputs include (i) improved rural roads; (ii) developed and improved community-based supplementary rural infrastructure; (iii) enhanced equity, employment, and income opportunities for the poor and disadvantaged; and (iv) strengthened institutional capacities.
In a competitive tender procedure in 2008, the consulting services for supporting the project coordination unit (PCU) were awarded to the joint venture company of Skat (Swiss Resource Centre and Consultancies for Development, www.skat.ch) in association with the Nepali ERMC (P) Ltd. (www.ermcnepal.com) and MULTI Disciplinary Consultants (P) Ltd. (www.multinepal.com). This Central Implementation Support Consultant (CISC) assists the central and district implementing agencies by providing efficient and effective managerial/ technical supports & backstopping in the implementation of the project. The CISC inputs cover expertise related to engineering, construction supervision, quality control & assurance, social, environmental and resettlement associated supports, training and capacity building, planning, monitoring & evaluation, and project management.
Further information about the RRRSDP can be found at http://www.rrr.gov.np and http://www.adb.org/projects/project.asp?id=40554.
Road Network Evaluation Tools (RONET) Version 2.0 released
The RONET model developed by SSATP is designed to assist decision makers in appreciating the current state of the road network, its relative importance to the economy and to compute a set of monitoring indicators to assess the performance of the road network. The performance is assessed over time under different road maintenance standards. RONET determines, for example, the minimum cost for sustaining the network in its current condition and estimates the savings or the cost to the economy for maintaining the network at different levels of services. It also determines the allocation of expenditures among recurrent maintenance, periodic maintenance, and rehabilitation road works, determines the optimal maintenance standard for each road class and compares it with the current (budget constraint) and other maintenance standards. Further it determines the "funding gap" defined as the difference between current maintenance spending and required maintenance spending (to maintain the network at a given level of service) and the effect of under spending on increased transport costs. Finally it also estimates the level of road user charges required to meet road maintenance expenditures under different budget scenarios.
RONET is structured with many configuration options for use in African and other developing countries. Version 1.01 was fully released in October 2007 and Ghana, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Uganda have been the pilot countries during the time it took to develop and test the model. RONET Version 2.00 was released in January 2009 and can be downloaded from. http://go.worldbank.org/A2QQYZNFM0.
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Transport and sustainable agricultural: topic addressed by the Colin Relf Young Voices Award
The Colin Relf Young Voices award aims to encourage young people from developing countries to express their innovative ideas, perspectives and approaches to rural transport and sustainable development. In the Second Award Round of June 2009 the young people were invited to discuss, with examples, the role that rural transport interventions can play in achieving sustainable agricultural development and poverty reduction based on the following statement: "Poor rural farmers are central to any solution to today's global food crisis and the long term problems of hunger and poverty" (Lennart Båge, President of IFAD, April 2008). The winning entries, assessed and selected by a panel of rural transport experts, can be downloaded from http://www.ifrtd.org/www.ifrtd.org/new/res/colinrelfawardhomepage2ndwinners.php.
IFRTD submission to the UK's DFID White Paper Consultation
The UK government's Department for International Development (DFID) has recently completed a consultation process for its White Paper on International Development due to be published in July 2009. The International Forum for Rural Transport and Development (IFRTD) has made a comprehensive submission to the White Paper process aiming to highlight to DFID the continuing need for rural transport to be prioritised in order to overcome the poverty experienced by 1.05 billion women, men and children living in rural areas in developing countries. The IFRTD submission highlights the critical role that rural transport plays in achieving socio-economic development and economic growth, through sustainable agricultural development and basic service provision; and also underlines the need for improved governance in the transport sector and the contribution that rural transport can make to combating climate change. The document can be downloaded from http://ifrtd.org/new/issues/DFIDwhitepaper2009_IFRTDsubmission.pdf (3.4MB).
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Review of the Suspension Bridge Programme Phase VI in Bhutan
Swiss involvement in the Suspension Bridge Programme (SBP) in Bhutan through SDC/Helvetas was launched in 1985. Since the beginning of the technical and financial cooperation between the Royal Government of Bhutan and SDC/Helvetas more than 250 safe river crossings have been constructed and about 100 existing bridges rehabilitated. These bridges provide access and mobility to thousands of beneficiary households all over the country. The socio-economic benefits of these generally remote river crossings are thus enormous. Over the years, planning, design and construction procedures for suspension and suspended bridges have been standardised to a high degree and production processes and implementation quality continually improved.
With extensive training interventions in 2006, the process of decentralising planning, survey and design of the newly introduced Short Span Trail Bridges has been started and culminated with the completion of the first training /demonstration bridge. This effort has to be seen in the context of substantial capacity building measures that have been undertaken not only at central but increasingly also at the district administration levels. With the transfer of additional staff and the creation of the Rural Infrastructure Services Division there exist good framework conditions for the sustainability of capacity building and institutional development measures. The last years were characterised by political legislative changes and the elections of April 2008. The new decentralised powers clearly allow a more bottom-up decision-making and need-based prioritisation of bridge projects. Financial means for maintenance are now available at the village level and can potentially be used for maintenance of trail bridges.
The SBP is a good entry point to promote good governance and strengthen local institutional structures through targeted capacity building measures such as instruction and training of local level staff including caretakers in issues related to the institutional and technical aspects of bridge planning, implementation and maintenance. In the framework of regular backstopping mission Skat assists the programme on technical, operational conceptual and strategic issues. The last such mission took place in January 2009. For further information on the SBP you may contact juerg.christen[at]skat.ch, author of the article, or see http://www.trans-web.ch/mobility/countries/bhutan.htm.
Atelier national Burkinabé sur la thématique de “Mobilité et Décentralisation”
Le processus de décentralisation au Burkina Faso vise à transférer plus de responsabilités aux collectivités territoriales en matière de gestion administratives, financières et technique. Le transport rural est pour ces dernières un facteur indispensable de développement, surtout en ce qui concerne l’accessibilité aux services sociaux de base (santé, éducation, etc.), et la valorisation des potentiels économiques. L’atelier national burkinabé “Mobilité et Décentralisation” qui s’est déroulé du 26 au 30 Avril 2009 à Ouagadougou - réunissant une cinquantaine d’acteurs du développement local (collectivités territoriales, services déconcentrés de l’Etat, ministères et société civile), de partenaires techniques et financiers du Burkina Faso et de personnes ressources - constituait une contribution à cette problématique. Il permettait de:
- Partager
les connaissances et les acquis existants en matière mobilité en milieu
rural du Burkina Faso;
- Amorcer la
discussion autour de la mise en application des principes de la
décentralisation dans la gestion et le développement des pistes rurales et
des services de transport rural;
- Identifier
les questions impératives et actions futures, et d’interpeller les
participants sur les enjeux de transport liés au développement des
collectivités territoriales et les rôles qu’ils peuvent y jouer.
L’atelier a été financé par la Banque Mondiale, la Direction du Développement et de la Coopération Suisse (DDC) et l’IFRTD (Forum international pour le transport rural et le développement). L’appui technique a été assuré par Skat et l’IFRTD, la mise en œuvre ayant été assurée par le FBTRD (Forum Burkinabé pour le transport rural et le développement). Le 2ème jour de l’atelier, les participants ont effectué une visite de terrain à Fada N’Gourma sur l’expérience du Programme Piste Rurales – Désenclavement à l’Est (PrEst) de Helvetas / DDC. La Coopération Suisse avait mandaté en 2001 un diagnostic de la faisabilité d’un programme de pistes rurales dans les 5 provinces de la région de l’Est menant en 2002 à la mise en place du PrEst avec comme finalité, dans une perspective décennale, l’existence dans la région d’un réseau de pistes de proximité carrossables, géré localement et de façon durable. L’approche est basée sur la recherche-action, le rôle du PrEst étant celui d’un innovateur en méthodes (HIMO, plans directeurs communaux) et de facilitateur (maîtrise d’ouvrage locale, renforcement des capacités).
La richesse de la diversité d’origine des participants à l’atelier a permis de couvrir l’essentiel des thématiques qui constituent le goulot d’étranglement des questions relatives à l’amélioration de la mobilité et l’accès en milieu rural du Burkina Faso. Désormais appelées à prendre en main leur destiné, les collectivités territoriales doivent tirer profit des opportunités dégagées par le présent atelier, et capitaliser les axes et orientations définis à l’issu de cette réflexion pour une amélioration de l’accessibilité et de la mobilité dans leurs unités décentralisées respectives.
Le lien http://www.trans-web.ch/mobility/downloads/AtelierNationalBurkinabe2009.pdf (0.8MB) permet de télécharger le résumé exécutif de l’atelier. Plus d’information sur le PrEst est disponible sous http://www.trans-web.ch/mobility/countries/burkina.htm.
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“Rural Transport and Traction Enterprises for Improved Livelihoods” (FAO, 2009)
The booklet focuses on
promoting transport and traction services as a viable diversification
enterprise for smallholder farmers and others in rural areas. It considers the
benefits that can arise from such enterprises, not only to smallholders
themselves, but also to local communities through increased productivity,
improved and faster marketing, better mobility and reduced drudgery. For
transport enterprises the focus is on land-based farm to main road linkages.
This booklet is targeted at public and private advisory institutions providing
support to rural communities, in particular advisers involved with developing
and enhancing revenue-generating rural enterprises for farmers.
See http://www.fao.org/docrep/011/i0525e/i0525e00.htm.
“Low Volume Rural Road Environmentally Optimised Design Manual” (SEACAP, 2009)
The objective of this SEACAP
(South East Asia Community Access Programme) project was to relate the new Laos
Low Volume Rural Road (LVRR) standards & specifications to the road design
process using an Environmentally Optimised Design (EOD) approach. This was done
by elaborating EOD guidelines targeted for engineers in the field. This manual
links LVRR design procedures to the standards & specifications, focuses the
allocation of scarce resources in the most efficient and sustainable manner and
was tested for Laos conditions.
See http://www.gtkp.com/knowledge.asp?step=4&contentID=3776.
“Building Rural Roads” (ILO, 2008)
Through ASIST in Asia and the
Pacific, the ILO promotes the use of local resource based technology to improve
the capacity of local government institutions to effectively deliver rural
infrastructure services. Produced as part of that undertaking, this manual
presents a set of technical solutions and work methods commonly applied in
countries where the use of local resources is given serious consideration when
building rural roads. It describes a set of work methods and procedures which
have demonstrated in practice that they are effective both in terms of cost and
quality. The document draws on the best practices that have been identified in
several rural road building programmes and is based on an in-depth review of
existing literature.
See http://www.ilo.org/asia/whatwedo/publications/lang--en/docName--WCMS_100216/index.htm.
“A Methodology for Rapid Assessment of Rural Transport Services” (SSATP, 2007)
The methodology was designed
to allow researchers and transport planners to have in a short time a good
understanding of a given rural transport situation in a developing country and
provide information to assist with policy formulation. The methodology involves
obtaining estimates of the existing transport services and their costs, the
demand for such services for economic, social, health, educational and
community reasons.
See http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTAFRSUBSAHTRA/Resources/SSATPWP87-A.pdf
(1.8MB).
Further selected links to online publications are provided at http://www.trans-web.ch/links/links.htm
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FORMATION: “Les investissements à fort coefficient d'emplois pour le développement durable”, ITC/ILO, Turin, Italie, 21-25 Sept., 2009
Le cours porte sur la possibilité d'atteindre des objectifs de développement économique et social à travers des choix d'investissements appropriés dans les secteurs des infrastructures et de la construction. Il se focalise sur les approches favorisant l'utilisation de ressources locales et sur les mesures pour réaliser leur potentiel de développement et de réduction de la pauvreté. Il s’adresse aux cadres gouvernementaux, associations de travailleurs et d'employeurs, agences de développement et responsables de projets de développement. http://www.itcilo.org/calendar/4402.
TRAINING: “Road Safety in Asian Countries: Principles & Approaches”, Diepenbeek, Belgium, 11-23 Oct., 2009
This short training course is built up in different steps which are important for improving road safety: the 1st part mainly focuses on the analysis of situations for a better diagnosis of the situation, the 2nd part focuses on measures and strategies to improve road safety, finally there will be a (group) assignment on how to apply the acquired knowledge and skills in practice. The course is aimed at participants who prepare, carry out and follow up road safety initiatives in Asia. http://www.imob.uhasselt.be/index.php?page=115.
SEMINAR: IRF seminar on “Road Safety and PPP”, Cairo, Egypt, 12-13 Oct. 2009
The International Road Federation (IRF) puts the issues of road safety and of the widening funding gap for road development and road works on the agenda for this seminar. The event will offer the participants the benefits of the very latest expert knowledge and best practice in those two important domains. http://www.irfnet.ch/eventdetail.php?catid=1&id=107&title=IRF seminar on Road Safety and PPP.
TRAINING: “Do no Harm”, Bern, Switzerland, 5-6 November, 2009
“Do no Harm“as planning tool has become a widely accepted minimal standard for development practitioners and an important element for a ‘conflict-sensitive’ work approach. The tool helps to systematically identify the ways in which humanitarian and development assistance in conflict settings may be provided so that they help strengthen local capacities for peace, rather than inadvertently contributing to the existing tensions. In the course of the two-day training the participants will become acquainted with patterns of interaction between assistance and conflict, the „Do no Harm“-tool, and its application in practice. http://www.swisspeace.ch/typo3/fileadmin/user_upload/pdf/KOFF/KOFF_Events/2009/KOFF_Trainings_2009.pdf.
CONFERENCE: Convention on Rural Roads, Arusha, Tanzania, 25-27 Nov. 2009
Organized by the IRF, in association with the Tanzanian Road Association (TARA) and the global Transport Knowledge Partnership (gTKP), the convention will be a unique opportunity for governments, private businesses, NGOs and other sector stakeholders to come together, exchange and discuss the latest experiences and research insights in rural roads and transport in Africa and other developing regions. http://www.irfnet.ch/eventdetail.php?catid=1&id=109&title=IRF/gTKP/TARA 2009 Convention on Rural Roads.
CONFERENCE: 16th IRF World Road Meeting, Lisbon, Portugal, 25-28 May, 2010
Landmark international gathering convened by the International Road Federation (IRF) around the theme ‘'Sharing the Road’'. It will bring together the world’s foremost experts and industry representatives to develop and define dynamic strategies that respond equitably and sustainably to the evolving needs of all stakeholders and that will shape the communications and transport networks of the 21st century. http://www.irf2010.com.
CONFERENCE: TRANSED 2010, Hong Kong, China, 2-4 June, 2010
12th International Conference on Mobility & Transport for Elderly and Disabled Persons themed “Sustainable Transport & Travel for All”. Held every 3 years, TRANSED conferences are milestone events in the field of accessible transportation, attracting researchers, policy-makers, transport operators, consumers and other specialists worldwide to share innovations and best practices in order to make transportation and mobility accessible to everyone. The deadline for submitting abstracts is 1st June 2009. http://www.transed2010.hk.
For further events or event agendas you may visit http://www.trans-web.ch/links/events.htm
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Directory of Development Organizations 2008 (En./Fr./Sp.): http://www.devdir.org
The directory of development organizations for 2008, listing 53,750 development organizations, has been prepared to facilitate international cooperation and knowledge sharing in development work, both among civil society organizations, research institutions, governments and the private sector.
Transaid website: http://www.transaid.org
Transaid tackles poverty and disadvantage by building transport skills and knowledge in the developing world. The website provides a wealth of information on the topic with project reports, research, information on Transaid systems, positions on current issues and links to useful websites.
Further selected links are available at http://www.trans-web.ch/links/links.htm
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-- DISCLAIMER --
The content of “FOCUS ON MOBILITY” does not necessarily reflect the official policies of SDC. Information contained may be freely used for non-commercial purposes, as long as SDC is duly acknowledged. For further information, please visit http://www.trans-web.ch/news.htm.
The “FOCUS ON MOBILITY” team
are:
- Niklaus Zingg (niklaus.zingg[at]deza.admin.ch) (SDC), +41 31 322 63 04
- Roger Schmid (roger.schmid[at]skat.ch) / Juerg Christen
(juerg.christen[at]skat.ch) (Skat), +41 71 228
54 54
“FOCUS ON MOBILITY” is a service provided by Skat within the “SDC Support Mandate in Mobility”. More information at http://www.trans-web.ch.
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