By Amin Kef Sesay
The usual pattern has been for Government to dictate the people’s development needs and priorities, most times, without any consultation with the people that will be beneficiaries and implementers of the projects, programs and policies designed.
In the Sierra Leone context, the Minister of Economic Planning, Dr Francis Kaikai in validating the country’s Medium Tern National Development Plan deserves kudos for using the bottom-top approach to find out from the people themselves what their priority development needs are.
In consultations held with stakeholders and the people in fourteen districts, what clearly emerged was that the people need roads, agriculture and energy most.
The reason why the rural people prioritize roads and agriculture is very clear to see.
Road access improvement in the productive rural areas contributes to productivity enhancement especially in remote areas. Findings are that a lot of food rot and wastes in hard to reach rural areas because of lack of motorable roads and vehicles to transport goods to markets.
The research shows that alleviating poverty through road infrastructure development is a major catalysis in theprocess of economic development and is a particular important factorto the growth of rural areas.
The African Development Bank believes that improvement of roads will have far reaching effects on agricultural productivity.
Where the majority of roadnetworks is poorly developed or in a dilapidated state, studies have shown stagnatedinvestment in agricultural sector and coupled with poor access to markets, these nations are prone to extreme poverty and hunger.
Impacts of road infrastructure in Asia and Latin America haveshown positive impacts on a number of outcomes: reduction in poverty levels, increased investments in agriculture and industry, increased household income and consumptionand investments in healthand education.
Significantly, rural to urban migration can be controlled when the rural areas have accessible roads, investments in agriculture and energy availability.
