Back to the future: Integrated Rural Accessibility Planning (IRAP) for a post-COVID world



I have worked in rural transport for a decade and have been out of the sector for even longer. but as a colleague once observed, you can take the woman out of transport, but you can’t take transport out of the woman, which is why, probably, I have been thinking about the implications the current COVID 19 crisis on transport provision, especially for marginalised women (and men) and children in rural areas.

Where I live right now, in Malaysia, containment measures for the COVID 19 virus goes under the apt name of ‘movement control’ which though it still is about control sounds less carceral than the term ‘lockdown’. At different stages of this MCO (as Malaysians call it) we have been allowed limited access to different spaces. Right now, the RMCO (recovery movement control order) is relatively relaxed and for the most part it would seem that in Malaysia at least we can move about freely, while wearing masks in public spaces and adhering to social distancing protocols.

 Of course this is not the same everywhere, and given the little we know about the behaviour and origins of this virus and the possibilities (real in some countries) of second and third waves of infection, the talk about changing the way we live should be moving beyond the realm of discourse into practice. In this context, and recognising that we have spent the last decades, maybe even the last century, facilitating peoples’ mobility, trying to make movement accessible to everyone, it surely is time to think about the implications of doing exactly the opposite?

The big conversations around mobility during the pandemic have focused on the crippling of the aviation industry and other forms of international and regional passenger transport as well as public transportation in the megacities. We know that many airline companies were compelled to lay off staff and even declare bankruptcy. But what about rural transport in countries of the global south? Our goal as rural transport development researchers, planners and policy activists has been to reduce the isolation of rural communities, and we have worked towards ensuring that women, men and children in the hinterland, away from the main urban areas and formal road networks, have the opportunity to access markets and social services. It does seem ironic then that ‘isolation’ seems to have emerged as the preferred way of containing the virus and dealing with the pandemic.

We are seeing now that relative isolation, alongside physical distance and lower population density, can have the benefit of containing the spread of the corona virus and potential future zoonotic diseases.  Research carried out in the past has shown us that opening transport corridors have been mixed in their impact – bringing in external infections to hitherto isolated communities while at the same time providing access to health services that our current development model has sought to concentrate in towns and cities. This concentration of services (markets, schools, hospitals etc) in hubs, or urban centres, where population densities are high and there are ‘economies of scale’ to service provision, has meant that as rural transport specialists our challenge has been to design systems of infrastructure provision and transport services to enable women, men and children in the periphery to reach those centres. Even though the sector has been dominated by road engineers, there are a few voices in the wilderness that have argued that rural transport planning requires an equal, if not greater emphasis, on transport services – and that affordable mobility is what is key.

But maybe, as we imagine the future, it is time to bring back a concept that had a lot of currency in the late 1990s and early years of this century but seems to have fallen out of the conceptual thinking of the transport sector – squashed perhaps by the neo-liberal economists in the international financial institutions whose preference for shining big hospitals as opposed to a decentralised network of health centres is no secret, in subtle collusion no doubt with the motorised transport lobby and infrastructure construction contractors. The concept is that of integrated rural accessibility planning (IRAP). The ILO invested a lot of money and time on developing the concept, the tools and a whole body of practical knowledge around IRAP.

 The basis of IRAP was to focus on minimising the need for transport and to make transport that is essential as efficient and cost-effective as possible. This meant that it recognised that transport can be minimised by locating services and facilities closer to the users, as what it termed as a ‘non-transport solution’ to what appeared to be a transport problem. The argument was that ‘the efficient planning and siting of services complements and, for some facilities, is more effective than measures to improve mobility’.[1] IRAP initially concentrated on transport over shorter distances, within and near settlements. It considered other forms of infrastructure such as paths, tracks and water crossings. It supported the development of local means of transport and transport services (bicycles, motorcycle-taxis etc) that are run by local informal sector transport providers. Subsequently, the IRAP methodology was used to study the catchment areas of small market towns. This allowed the strengthening of local markets and a reduction of the need for travel to larger urban centres. At all levels, it considers the specialised transport patterns of women and options for reducing their time poverty. Overall, the use of IRAP can reduce the need for rural women, men and children to travel regularly to congested, high density urban locations to access work and their basic needs.

 The transport sector has, by and large been quite conservative in pushing the boundaries of development thinking. For instance, it did (and still does, I would say) lag far behind the energy sector or the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) sector, in integrating gender into its programmes. But IRAP is a transport sector concept that can truly make a change in a post-COVID world, and it should be resurrected. Of course, the transport sector just promoting IRAP will not achieve anything. It requires a changed mindset among development practitioners and planners. It requires a stronger focus on the rural sector, the rural economy and rural services. It requires challenging the hegemony of the current development model and pushing against the weight of the current development institutions, and maybe even the private sector. 

The question is, are rural transport professionals ready to throw down the gauntlet? To reimagine a different world?


[1] pp 31 ILO (2003) Integrated Rural Accessibility Planning (IRAP) Modular Training Package Harare, International Labour Organization/Advisory Support Information Services and Training Programme for Africa (ILO/ASIST – Africa), 2003, ISBN 92-2-114323-6 accessed on 31/08/2020 on https://www.ilo.org/dyn/asist/docs/F1029928975/irap_training.pdf


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