User-friendly and cheaper per-unit-cost transportation is needed in our client countries, for the people as well as for the goods. Increased mobility is closely linked to economic growth and to poverty alleviation.
Transportation projects have potential biophysical and environmental impacts and also on neighboring communities such as noise, dust, aesthetics, frequency of workers' accidents, general health and safety concerns. Land intensive transportation projects can often trigger our Involuntary Resettlement Policy, Operational Policy/Bank Procedures (OP/BP) 4.12.
In rural isolated areas, in particular, new transportation projects can considerably increase the prevalence of communicable diseases, in particular, HIV. A more complex issue is the extent to which creating new roads or upgrading existing ones facilitates or not the illegal access to natural resources (poaching, illegal logging). Transportation projects in areas close to natural ecosystems can benefit from an Environmental Assessment to clarify those direct and indirect risks. (Please see the below links for Operational Policy/Bank Procedures (OP/BP) 4.12 and Operational Policy (OP) 4.12 Annex A).
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