Active transport in Africa and beyond: towards a strategic framework

ABSTRACT

Despite the well-established benefits of active transport (AT) (walking and bicycling), the rate of AT is generally decreasing across the globe. To reverse this trend, AT needs to be promoted by governments worldwide with a strategic framework to guide national AT policy formulation and administration. With a nine-component strategic framework, the present study provides policy directions for the effective formulation and implementation of AT policy strategies in Africa. It takes a pioneering step towards bridging the knowledge gap about AT policy strategy formulation based on developed Western countries. Transport policies of seven African countries have been reviewed (Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa and Uganda). The review suggests that countries with specific AT policies (versus general transport policies covering AT) did better. We believe that it would be better to position the need for identifying new AT funding regimes as a priority for the efficient administration of the respective AT policies to avoid foreseeable financial obstructions in the policy administration. While the countries reviewed are by no means generic of all countries around the world, the strategic framework can be extended to assess similar policies, and our results can provide lessons for future AT policy formulation in other countries.

KEYWORDS:

• Active transport
• Africa
• bicycling
• strategic framework transport policy
• walking

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Becky P. Y. Loo http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0822-5354

Additional information

Funding

The resources and funds needed for AT are usually limited if not unavailable, especially in developing countries. Hence, all potential sources of funding to carry out the policy should be queried and properly marked. Failure to plan around this may cause the policy to fizzle. Following from this, it is also important that during the planning stages, a cost-effective way of allocating funds among different strategies is considered. Again, the application of cost–benefit research approach will be essential to arrive at a cost-effective fund sharing formula, although that might come with some trade-offs.