ReCAP (Research for Community Access Partnership) is a partnership aiming to create improved accessibility for poor and disadvantaged rural communities in Africa and Asia. More specifically, the main focus is to promote research in order to improve rural transport (both mobility and physical infrastructures) and allow for better access to economic opportunities and social facilities. This partnership was funded by UK aid from 2008 to 2020. On 14 December 2020, the International Road Federation (IRT) took over the management of the ReCAP website and its knowledge library to ensure access to the existing resources and their future uptake.
UK aid-funded research programmes on rural roads and transport services are at the core of ReCAP. ReCAP focuses its activities on Africa and Asia, through the Africa Community Access Partnership (AfCAP) and the Asia Community Access Partnership (AsCAP). Low-income countries in Africa and Asia are supported in the design, build and maintenance of all-weather rural roads to guarantee better access for poor communities.
The research strategy framework is built around three broad, inter-related, thematic clusters: infrastructure, transport services and cross-cutting issues.
- Infrastructure: Engineering and technical research on rural roads as well as the organisational arrangements of their planning, funding, construction, maintenance and investigation (research, testing) is the primary focus of the programme.
- Transport services: All aspects of the provision of public and private transport services (motorised and non-motorised) in rural areas of low-income countries are considered in the research. Both passengers and goods are incorporated in the analysis of the operation and regulation of public transport services, intermediate means of transport, rural mobility and access to the road network.
- Cross-cutting issues: Several other relevant topics have been included in the research programme. Climate change, road safety and gender issues are only a few of the many additional areas that need to be taken into account for the correct planning of effective rural accessibility.
ReCAP also aims to build shared knowledge to increase local (national) capacity to initiate, carry out and disseminate research about low-volume rural roads and rural transport services. The ReCAP website contains a Regional Projects section with several reports, articles and media files about specific projects related to rural transport. Another section of the website allows users to access resources such as the Rural access library and the Low Volume Roads DCP Software as well as additional links to development agencies' websites and videos about rural transport topics explained by senior rural transport experts.