Road infrastructure, housing and economic development

By Chime A. Peter

INFRASTRUCTURE is the backbone of a nation’s development, and investment in transport infrastructure, with good roads in particular must be a crucial component of its foundation, simply because roads are the arteries through which the economy pulses. Roads improve connectivity and accelerate trade, economic growth and integration. They facilitate the movement of people, goods, and services, as well as fostering social interaction and cohesion among the entire population. With good roads, citizens and institutions would connect with one another more easily and more quickly. Roads enhances government’s ability to provide equal levels of public services, such as security, schooling, health care, policing, and several others across the states, local governments and communities, making growth more balanced, and enabling the poor to better help themselves, with the effect that horizontal inequalities, exclusion, and marginalization, all major sources of grievances and conflict will be reduced. Not only that, roads make it easier and cheaper to travel and communicate, thereby improving the effectiveness of state institutions across distance – the projection of authority – which makes these institutions more equitable and inclusive in the process.

The easier it is to move, the easier it is to govern, especially in low-capacity contexts. In Nigeria, roads constitute the most important component of the transport infrastructure network and thus represent an important piece in our quest to promote inclusive development and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Unfortunately, Nigeria currently faces significant challenges in road infrastructure, and even more challenges in maintaining the available road network, with many regions suffering from poor road conditions. Less than 50% of the country’s population has access to good roads and transport costs are twice as high, compared to other parts of the developing world. To put it in a proper perspective, the state of Nigerian roads is deplorable and poses a grave danger to human lives. One can fact check this through daily occurrence of road accidents, and several lives lost. Bad roads have negative economic impacts such as making transportation of goods across the country more expensive, hinders availability of essential goods and services from the rural areas, hinders commercialization and industrialization, thus contributing to the rising inflation, which in turn impacts goods and services, especially in rural areas where more than 50% of Nigerians resides. Investing in road infrastructure is crucial for economic growth, poverty reduction and safety. Addressing road quality and accessibility is the surest way towards Nigeria’s progress and development. Roads are vital to any development agenda. They bring economic and social benefits when producers are linked to the markets and to the consumers, workers linked to jobs, students to school, and the sick to hospitals. I should not fail to mention the adverse effects of inefficient road infrastructure on housing development. Nigeria’s infrastructure gap is adversely impacting the full potential of housing, good road transport network is the foundation of housing and sustainable economic development. Road infrastructure development plays an invaluable role in housing; its role in housing provision cannot be overstated and should be given utmost consideration and attention. East Asian states, especially in their state-building periods made the expansion of their road networks a major priority. These states, of which the best example is China focused on stitching together nascent nations, catalyze inclusive development process and ensure the state could operate effectively everywhere while promoting economic takeoff. China, through massive investment in road infrastructure, succeeded in increasing connectivity, strengthening national identity, boosting growth, building up new growth pillars, increasing the country’s attractiveness to investors, promoting inclusiveness, reducing social exclusion and grievances, increasing living standards, boosting investment in lagging areas, reducing imbalances in growth, spurring exports and trade across borders, advancing strategic urbanization, regional growth poles, and more balanced development.

The country offers many lessons for Nigeria in this sector. In as much as infrastructure deficits translate into service delivery challenges, they also present opportunities for investors. Federal government would have to review its priorities and policy direction to be able to adequately develop the nation’s road infrastructure, which is said to require about $15 billion to be injected into the sector annually for 15 years. Given its limited access to international debt and taking into consideration its revenue constraints amidst competing priorities, government has to look into the direction of private capital funding as the most appropriate solution to inadequate infrastructure funding. Large road and transportation project requires amounts beyond the capacity of the federal and state governments in any single year, given competing priorities. Therefore, external forces will be inevitable for long term projects.

We need to revisit the traditionally public-sector niche market in basic infrastructure, rethink the set of feasible modes of engagement in the context of emerging possibilities unleashed by the forces of technological advancement, demographic changes and culture, and re-strategize on the way going forward.

From the private investors’ perspective, some of the important factors that will accelerate sustainable infrastructure development in Nigeria and ensure the realization of the country’s potential include better project planning, stronger technical partnerships, mobilizing the “right” equity for infrastructure projects. And we cannot do this without collaborating and partnering effectively with the private sector and the professionals, particularly professionals in land administration, asset valuation, valuation for compensation, housing, and the right of way, the estate surveyors and valuers. Nigeria needs Public Private Partnerships (PPP) investment model to unlock the potentials in the housing sector. The country is in great need of efficient public infrastructure and services as its infrastructure gap is adversely impacting the full potential of housing, economic growth and development. The first thing to do is to open up the entire landscape and neighborhoods. Without any doubt, development of adequate infrastructure, particularly road transport network is the foundation of housing and sustainable economic development.

It will open up the suburb areas and access to low-cost land, cut down travel time for commuters and decongest the city.

• Chime is an estate surveyor and valuer based in Lagos

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