Nepaleserne har bygget 7.000 km veje, alligevel har næsten halvdelen af Nepals indbyggere ikke ordentlige veje, som er farbare året rundt, og de kan dermed ikke komme til hospitaler, skoler og markeder.
* 23.000 km of roads – still not enough
* Lack of roads boosts food prices
* Roads key to development, but not a “panacea” (universalmiddel)
KATHMANDU, 20 June 2013 (IRIN): In Nepal, where rugged mountainous terrain isolates millions of people from life-saving health care, markets and education, experts say the country’s roads are in sore need of more focus and investment.
Nepal has built about 7.000 km of roads nationwide over the past decade, according to the World Bank.
But this still leaves more than half the population without access to all-weather roads in a country where millions struggle to reach safe, nutritious food, and which ranks as one of the world’s worst places for a child to fall ill (out of 161 countries evaluated by NGO Save the Children) due to women’s and children’s poor access to health care.
Nearly half of Nepal’s 27 million people live in rugged hill and mountain areas. People living in the mountains (roughly 7 percent of the population) report some of the weakest development indicators nationwide.
The national average for children under the age of five who are chronically malnourished is 41 percent; this figure exceeds (overstiger) 60 percent in the mountains.
Mountains and markets
According to a 2010 report by the World Food Programme (WFP), transportation costs are the most significant factor for food prices in the mountains, and road access the primary determinant of those costs.
Furthermore, food wasted in transit due to lack of roads, or poor quality ones, can impact the market value of agriculture products.
According to recent market indicators, a kilogram of coarse (grov) rice that costs the equivalent of 39 US cents in Kathmandu, can cost three times that amount in mountain markets of Dolpa District (in western Nepal’s Karnali Zone) that lack road access.
Though Nepal has 23.029 km of roads and construction is steadily increasing, experts are calling for not only more roads, but also quality ones.
According to the government’s most recent Nepal Living Standards Survey in 2011, Nepalis living in rural areas – especially in hills and mountains – report roads in their areas are unsatisfactory.
Only 12 percent of Nepalis, including those living in urban areas, consider the roads where they live “good”.
Just 42 percent of Nepal’s roads are blacktopped (asfalteret), with the rest a combination of gravel (grus), which can survive some harsh weather, and earthen (jordsmon), which can wash away during seasonal rains, government figures show.
Health fallout
Læs videre på:
http://www.irinnews.org/report/98258/analysis-why-roads-matter-in-nepal
