Focus on Development Impact

Transport contributes, and could contribute more, to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals in five key ways:

		Facilitating economic growth and regional integration through international trade
		High transport costs magnify the impact of distance and reduce trading opportunities, while good freight services can make traded goods more affordable and help developing countries to build more complex supply chains that facilitate trade. Furthermore, a reduction in international transport costs for traded goods can give producers more disposable income.	Find out more:  Trade Logistics & Facilitation Global Facilitation Partnership
		Making cities work better for their citizens, for the environment, and for economic growth
		Rapidly growing urban populations and numbers of private vehicles are overwhelming the roads in many cities, leading to increasing congestion, poor service and reliability of road-based public transport, low mobility, more accidents, and poor air quality. Yet, stronger institution building, more incentives, and better regulation can improve existing city transport systems by making them more affordable for taxpayers and users and by making them safer and cleaner through proper maintenance, investment, and service expansion.	Find out more:  Urban Transport Urban Development
		Creating economic opportunity and growth in rural areas
		Poor transport is often the main restraint on economic progress and poverty reduction in rural areas. Improving access to markets encourages rural farmers to modernize with fertilizers, mechanized equipment, and new seed varieties, which, in turn, raises yields, lowers unit costs, and increases demand for inputs and credit. Rural transport also provides access to labor markets and thus the opportunity to earn nonfarm income. Moreover, the same road that provides access to product, service, and labor markets often provides the right of way for electricity lines and water pipes.	Find out more:  Rural Transport Agriculture & Rural Development
		Providing access to facilities that deliver health care and education
		Better access to education and health facilities increases enrollment rates in rural schools and leads to more visits to health care services. The impact on girls and women, who often suffer disproportionately from poor transport, is especially profound, as better transport services help to ease the risks of travel and the burdens of collecting firewood and water and thus allow more opportunities for school attendance, home hygiene, and prenatal care.	Find out more:  Transport & Social Responsibility Health, Nutrition & Population
		Becoming safer and cleaner for users and the community
		Although improvements in transport are essential to meeting the Millennium Development Goals, transport also creates its own set of problems, which detract from those goals. In the transport business strategy the Bank intends to provide more support to help mitigate transport’s contribution to three major problems: the growing incidence of road traffic accidents, the health and environmental impact of vehicle emissions and the broader contribution of transport activities to climate change, and the role of transport in the transmission of disease.	Find out more:  Global Road Safety Facility Climate Change