Road Infrastructure as a Driving Force towards Socio-economic Development in the South African Rural Areas

Description

Page: 532-537

N. Mabunda (Department of Public Administration, University of Limpopo, Polokwane, South Africa)

Assuring accessibility throughout the country requires good road infrastructure. Like in many other African nations, including South Africa, a sizable portion of the population lives in rural areas where, as of yet, no downstream development has cascaded to them. This paper explores how road infrastructure can transform the socio-economic development of rural areas. Most entrepreneurs in rural areas struggle to grow as they have challenges connecting themselves to the market due to poor road infrastructure. The South African rural areas such as Greater Giyani in Mopani District desire to be easily connected to economic activities. Most of them uses buses and minibuses such as taxi as a mode of transport, however, accessibility during the rainy season is a problem. To achieve the objective, a large literature was considered for review in order to come up with a conclusion and recommendation. It is observed that road infrastructure plays an important role in rural socio-economic development.