Paper presented to the DSA/ Helpage International Meeting on Ageing, London January 7th 2009
Transport, a critical dimension in development: its
integration in programme provision for older
people
Margaret Grieco,
Professor of Transport & Society,
Introduction: integrating transport into social policy
Our starting point must be that in
general the understanding of the importance of transport arrangements for the
operation of social, political and economic life is weak in the policy
fields. This is particularly true both
in the fields of development policy and social policy around ageing.
To provide an understanding of the
scale of this gap in the field of development policy, the Millennium
Development Goals were articulated without reference to the better organization
of transport despite the critical importance of transport in achieving such
goals.
In ageing policy, piece meal attempts
can be found to provide local transport projects which accommodate the aged
such as dial-a-ride schemes but fundamental policy engagement with the
constrained mobility circumstances of a growing demography of aged as a new
social characteristic of society has not taken place.
Transport has developed as an
infrastructural profession and expertise separate from social policy and social
policy has developed as a professional arena in which current transport
arrangements are taken as a largely given and unalterable state of the
world. There is an existing separation
of expertises which works against the integration of
transport into programme provision for the range of
policy constituencies - and ageing and development policy are both casualties
of this separation of expertise.
Ageing policy in the development
context is thus doubly impacted. Transport
can be viewed as a very important missing link in developing high quality
social policy and is most certainly a neglected dimension in age policy. Professional transport practice currently gives low priority to social
policy issues in its design. The
professionals and policy constituencies concerned with social policy have
limited impact on or control over the transport system; the professionals and
policy constituencies concerned with transport have little interest in or
knowledge of the social policy environment.
As the world stands,
there seems to be little progress in achieving effective dialogue between these
constituencies: in the developing world most particularly in Africa, the
resolution of maternal mortality has a strong and measurable transport
dimension yet the MDGs concerned with maternal health failed to engage with
this issue; in
disaster relief, the auditing of age next to accessibility to points of service
delivery is not a standing protocol.
General failure to appreciate constrained mobilities
under routine circumstances is accentuated in its consequences in conditions of
disaster and emergency.
What can be done?
There are a number of
steps that can be taken. The first step
is to recognize that transport is indeed critical in the reduction of social
exclusion and to simultaneously understand that this does not necessarily mean
that the requirement is for older persons to expand on their mobility. Rather it means that the ways in which
constrained mobility currently negatively impacts on older persons’ access to
services, resources and sociabilities must be identified
and measures taken to positively adjust that access.
It may be that providing older persons only with
direct accessibility to existing services imposes additional burdens on them,
most particularly the burden of mobility, whereas enhancing their indirect
accessibilities – the provision of services through their existing social networks or developing social
networks to provide these services
- mmay be the appropriate path to
take.
Clearly, programmes which seek to service older persons through
indirect accessibility – that is to say place the burden of mobility on the
social networks of older persons rather than requiring mobility of older
persons themselves to access services – are more complex to audit and indeed
are more difficult initially to develop as the identification of and/or
construction of appropriate social networks for the delivery of services must
also be undertaken.
It is important to
appreciate that the transport circumstances of older persons are in part a
reflection of the transport circumstances of the general population – though as
we have already argued not simply so as there are additional sets of mobility
constraints operating for older persons.
The general transport circumstances of any community have consequences
not only for the pattern of direct accessibility and mobility but also for
indirect accessibility. Where the able
bodied of any community have weak transport links to external resources and
services, these weak direct
accessibilities have consequences for those who must access resources through
them such as older persons.
Using this type of
analysis we can quickly see that the question “what
role does transport have for reducing social exclusion and rural social
inequalities older people?” is more complicated than it first
appears. Simply improving the general
transport circumstance of a community will not of itself improve the quality of
life of older persons if those persons have constrained mobility and weak
indirect accessibility.
Schemes must therefore be designed to
take account of the indirect accessibility dimension and ensure that this
dynamic is integrated into programme provision. Correspondingly, where communities have
integrated older persons needs into their social transport dynamics in terms of indirect accessibility
and transport arrangements are weakened or allowed to worsen then the impact of
such deterioration is commensurately greater than past practices of analysis
indicate.
Clearly, to properly integrate
transport considerations into programme provision
there is a need to understand at a detailed level the social functioning of a
community and there is also a need to analyse and
consider the ways in which any scheme will improve upon or could negatively
impact such functioning. Perhaps an
example might help, placing mobility resources with older persons in a
community who can rent them out or use them as a basis for the exchange of
services is one type of programme dynamic which can
be used to better the position of older persons, most particularly women.
Put differently, capitalizing older persons’ in respect
of their transport needs should be thought of not only in terms of whether they
can get to services but whether services can be brought to them. The capitalizing of transport resources can
be thought of in terms of small cost but high efficiency mechanisms such as
bicycles – older persons may not be able to ride bicycles but they could own
bicycles either as individuals or collectives that could be used in exchange
for the provision of services.
Transport provision always has local specificities which
require detailing: that a programme or scheme works
in one district, area or region is never a guarantee that it will work in
another. Schemes designed for flat
regions do not necessarily work well in mountainous regions – bicycle based
provision, for example, clearly has different potentials as between flat and
mountainous regions.
The extent to which any scheme is transferable can only be
settled by detailed analysis and knowledge and all too often in development
practice this stage is truncated or skipped.
The question as to “ how would the achievement of the MDGs be
affected by better transport?” can be readily answered at a general level: all of the MDGs require effective transport
organization to deliver them and this effective transport organization has been
assumed to be present when for very many
regions of the world it is simply not.
But the reason for the over-simplification in the
presentation of the mdgs is clear: once it is accepted that current transport
organization is problematic
over a very large domain then the level of specification required
to put programmes into place is considerably
greater. Programmes
have to take on board the need for specific information around transport
circumstance and transport circumstance is not simply about the shape of
infrastructure but the pattern of design and use of infrastructure which in its
turn is a consequence of patterns of social relations. Transport organization is a display of
embodied power - not everybody traveling in the same place is traveling in the
same space or same way.
And some of the old core solutions are now problematic. The view that modernization and motorization
were the key companions on the journey towards improvement has now been
strongly and negatively impacted.
Schemes and programmes
have increasingly to be ready to face environmental audits. Development agencies are under increasing
scrutiny to demonstrate the environmentally friendly character of their
proposals. However, it is rapidly seen
that environmental audits have sped to the head of the agenda without any
compensating improvement in the position of social audits.
Issues of social equity rapidly fall to
the back of the queue and even where they are presented the presentation is
piecemeal and frequently distorted. To
the question “what is the balance of ethical and
environmental issues for improving transport in LDCs?” the answer must be
that there is need for a stronger policy dialogue which ensures that the burden
of constraining mobility does not fall disproportionately upon the developing
world as environmental targets are set.
Research into greener transport and
investment in improving the local economy dynamics of the developing world must
both form part of an answer. Trade and
transport are inextricably linked - trade requires transport and transporting
over distance given current transport technology necessarily has environmental
costs. To think of reducing trade in our
current economic world is to think the unthinkable but to recognize that the
environmental awareness of the present has this logical implication is a
necessary step toward clarity.
This suggests that there is a big rethink to be undertaken in
respect of transport and development -
·
developing
transport in respect of local economies and developing transport in a green and
socially responsible pattern become policy imperatives.
·
Capitalising
older persons, most particularly women, to be an active part of the mobility
system within the framework of indirect accessibility is a policy option which
can be usefully considered.
·
Addressing the separation of
professional expertises so that schemes and projects
are better audited from design through implementation to operation is
critical.
·
Creating readily accessible electronic
data archives on schemes and projects can help reduce the mounds of ‘grey
literature’ which are currently shelved after their expensive generation within
the development process.
“ How
can transport be integrated in to development policy and practice?” – with greater conceptual clarity, with better attention to
detail, with the greater involvement of the end user, with greater courage in
vision. Some of the solutions are to be found in “best practice”
that is already with us, some of the solutions are to be found in the
generation and enforcement of a more open and honest policy dialogue, followed
up be audited and accountable performance, and some of the solutions are to be
found in the courage of a new dialogue which admits that global trade may fail
us as the path to the solution of global inequality.