Road to Sustainable Development in SSA

The proposed project seeks to better understand the complex consequences of road infrastructure in terms of sustainable development. First, we will quantify the impact of road infrastructure on food security in Sub-Saharan Africa, in particular, how road accessibility affects child malnutrition, a standard health indicator. In this way, our research project will contribute to the second UN Sustainable Development Goal to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition. From a methodological point of view, we will offer an innovative approach to deal with the endogenous location of road construction. Second, we will unpack that relationship by looking at the role of deforestation and shed light on potential trade-offs between economic and sustainable development. We will first test the hypothesis that road-induced renewed economic activities are accompanied by higher rates of deforestation and forest fragmentation. Such analysis will be carried out by relying on satellite-based data, through nightlight densities and vegetation and land cover indicators. We will then focus on the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a case in point of the potential trade-off between economic development and environmental sustainability. After replicating the previous analysis for this specific country, we will explore how diet diversity and the sectoral composition of the local economy have changed when both road construction and deforestation co-exist.

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Photo (right): Kindly shared by Nik Stoop