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DO I NEED THIS TOOLKIT?
WHAT DO I NEED TO KNOW?
WHAT DO I NEED TO DO?
WHAT'S SPECIAL ABOUT MY SECTOR?
ØCAS, PRSP AND PRSC
ØMulti-sector demand driven (CDD)
ØMulti-country HIV/AIDS (MAP)
ØPost-conflict projects
ØEarly child development (ECD)
ØEducation
ØHealth
ØTransport
ØEnergy
 


  Transport

Introduction

While some might question how the transport sector can play an active role in preventing and supporting OVC, in fact, the Transport Team at the World Bank has being financing initiatives that, either directly or indirectly, benefit OVC since the 1990s. Long-haul truckers and road construction workers constitute high-risk groups for HIV/AIDS infection and have tended to spread the disease along the routes they travel. Along the Abidjan-Lagos Transport Route HIV infection rates among truck drivers were found to be considerably higher than the national averages. (In 1992 in Togo, for example, 33% of the truck drivers were infected, compared to an average infection rate of 6% for the country as a whole.)

HIV caught the attention of the Transport Sector at the Bank because of the large loss of manpower, including truck drivers and other service providers. Well before the MAPs were conceived, the World Bank Africa Region Transport Group took action to address the impacts of large mobile populations of road workers, who were at risk themselves and put residents of the communities they served at risk. The fact that transport projects generally trigger safeguards and thus require social and environmental assessments, may have helped to accelerate the sector’s response to HIV and its impact on families and children. These efforts brought forth several interventions that benefit OVC and will be discussed more in detail below.


Overview of Possible Interventions

We recommend that you focus your attention on incorporating one or several of the project design features outlined below that either serve to protect a child from a risk or ensure that OVC and their families have equal access to the opportunities that the new transport project brings to the community or those that are designed to address the special needs of OVC. If you have the time and money, we encourage you to organize a stakeholders meeting as described in the section on working with partners. While more time-consuming, the participatory diagnostic process will both improve the quality of information you gather and build local ownership and commitment.

After selecting your preferred interventions, we recommend that you screen them against the criteria that appear in the section entitled “Sample Worksheet to Rank OVC Interventions”. For help estimating costs, consult the section entitled “Costing interventions”.


OVC Category

Possible Interventions in the Transport Sector

All OVC

  • Give parents of OVC not needed at home for caretaking duties, priority in local hiring of construction workers (worker vulnerability targeting).
  • Include in the design adequate road safety initiatives targeting children (i.e., speed bumps, crossing areas, clearly marked sidewalks and walking areas, and signs around schools,
  • Support safety campaigns in communities served.
  • Make small grants available to communities to support the introduction of intermediary means of transport, such as animal carts for transporting goods, water, people etc. The gender and rural transport initiative of the SSATP has supported many small grants for this purpose.

Project Design Features by OVC Category

Street Children

  • Include organized truck stop market places, where adults can rent stalls to prepare and sell food and drink to construction workers and later passing traffic to discourage the spontaneous surge of child vendors.

HIV/AIDS affected children

  • Require contractors to offer HIV/AIDS education and condoms to their workers to minimize spread of disease to children and their parents.
  • Support the creation of special testing and counseling stations on major trade routes at specific intervals targeting truck drivers and other at risk populations (sex workers, etc.).

Children in the Worst Forms of Child Labor

  • International and national labor laws already prohibit contractors from hiring children under 15, in particular for hazardous work. Transport projects need to build in monitoring mechanisms and manpower to allow them to identify violations and report them to the relevant authorities. This is only valid in countries with a functional legal system capable of prosecuting violators.

Children in Post-Conflict Situations

  • Include de-mining as a priority activity
  • Fund mines awareness education, perhaps in partnership with UNICEF, which has considerable experience in contracting with local NGOs to do this kind of work.
  • Recruit and train older children formerly affiliated with armed groups and too old to attend school to do construction work. The Sierra Leone project targeted young former soldiers as workers and used labor-intensive techniques to enhance opportunities for employment.

Children living with a disability

  • Make sure that your transport project designs include access ramps in street curbs, at stations, and airports.
  • Make small grants to NGOs serving children with a disability to build or purchase hand-cranked tricycles for wheelchair bound children.
  • Protect open ditches and pits to prevent accidents (consider the blind)




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