A moving issue : children and young people's transport and mobility constraints in Africa.

Abstract

Children and young people are rarely at the forefront of transport studies, despite the fact that their ability to access health and educational facilities is crucial to the achievement of many of the Millennium Development Goals.To address this knowledge gap a pioneering collaborative research project led by the University of Durham has gathered evidence of the specific mobility constraints experienced by girl and boy children as they attempt to access the facilities and services that are important to their lives.This innovative research, supported by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), was conducted across three Sub-Saharan countries: Ghana, Malawi and South Africa.The project explored the travel challenges faced by girl and boy children through their own eyes alongside traditional adult-led research methods.It looked at their access to health, education and other services, at the lack of direct information on how mobility constraints impact on children's current and future livelihood opportunities, and at the lack of available guidelines on how to tackle them.In this issue of Forum News we highlight the key findings of the project, share relevant resources and ask where do we go from here?Over three years the research project aimed to gather an evidence base strong enough to substantially improve policy in the focus countries and to change thinking across Africa.The evidence base is built on three inter-connected research components:l Innovative preliminary research by young people themselves.70 young researchers (aged 11-21 years) conducted research among their peers.Their findings, valuable in themselves, also helped to shape research questions used in two adult academic research components.l Qualitative research with children, parents, teachers, health andtransport workers and other key informants through in-depth interviews, accompanied walks, focus groups and also life histories with people in their mid-20s.l A questionnaire survey administered to approximately 1000 children aged 9-18 in each country.The academic researchers worked in 4 sites -urban, peri-urban, rural with services (a primary school, sometimes a health centre) and remote rural (no services)in each of two contrasting agro-ecological zones per country.24 sites in total, giving substantial opportunities for locational comparisons.

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