Background
Indicator 9.1.1, on the proportion of the rural population who live within 2km of an all-season road, is currently a Tier II indicator. The indicator was chosen based on a previously-established measurement of rural transport access, the Rural Access Index (RAI).
Country examples
(to be developed)
Guidance and Methodology
The current RAI methodology is defined in this World Bank document from 2016, Measuring Rural Access: Using New Technologies. The United Kingdom Department for International Development has also funded a Research for Community Access Partnership (ReCAP) programme that has produced supplemental guidelines on the RAI, which are available at: Measuring Rural Access: Using New Technologies; Supplemental Guidelines. These Guidelines refined the 2016 methodology and emphasised the involvement of National Statistical Offices and other government agencies to coordinate in producing an accurate measurement of the RAI. They included a quality assurance process and established how metadata should be stored and recorded.
A Policy Guide and Roadmap has been prepared that sets out the policy interventions required to support the sustainable measurement of the RAI. It also provides a Roadmap to achieve Tier 1 status of SDG 9.1.1 by 2025, available here: http://research4cap.org/Library/WorkmanMcPherson-TRL-2020-RAI-PolicyGuideRoadmap-ReCAP-GEN2033D-200622.pdf.
A proof of concept RAI Measurement Tool has also been developed and displays the RAI for all countries globally on an interactive geospatial map, based on three open datasets: OpenStreetMap, WorldPop, and the Global Rural-Urban Mapping Project (GRUMP). It also compares in-country data with the open datasets for three sample countries (Malawi, Nepal and Myanmar). The tool is available here: https://rai.azavea.com.
The Sustainable Mobility for All (SuM4All) initiative provides input and leverages the RAI in its global tracking framework. More information can be found here: http://sum4all.org/.
For further background information on this indicator, users can consult the World Bank data Catalog at https://datacatalog.worldbank.org/dataset/rural-access-index-rai which gives a larger overview and lists data and resources, including an RAI tracker.
Examples of the RAI in Action
