TRANSPORT AND POVERTY REDUCTION MONITORING FRAMEWORK WORKSHOP

International Forum for Rural Transport and Development (IFRTD), with support from
the UK Department for International Development (DFID) Civil Society Challenge Fund,
Swiss Development Corporation (SDC) and Swedish International Development Agency
(SIDA), organised a three-day workshop at the Nairobi Safari Club, Nairobi, Kenya on
the 13th to 15th of December 2005 to develop a transport and poverty reduction
monitoring (TPM) framework. The workshop brought together a total of 18 researchers
from Africa, Asia and Latin America, who have been taking part in the Poverty Watch
Programme. The Poverty Watch was designed as an IFRTD programme that would help
spotlight key interfaces between transport and poverty reduction. The workshop marked
the end of the current phase of the programme that was implemented in 14 countries
namely, Cambodia, Indonesia, Nepal, Sri Lanka (Asia), Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania,
Zimbabwe (Anglophone Africa), Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sènègal
(Francophone Africa), Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Peru (Latin America).
The main process of achieving the objectives of the poverty watch was through
mobilising and building the capacity of civil society [IFRTD network members/NFG] to
carry out analytical work on the links between transport and poverty, and to use that
knowledge as a basis for policy advocacy in respective countries. An ultimate output of
the current phase of the Poverty Watch programme was to develop a framework for
monitoring the transport sector policies and implementation processes against the goals
poverty reduction. This was among the key objectives of the Nairobi Workshop.