Study title

The data-sets downloadable are the baseline and endline household surveys conducted in 'treatment' villages and 'control' villages in Nimba County, Liberia, to assess the socio-economic impact of upgrading rural footpaths from farm to village to road-side, to motorcycle taxi navigable tracks. The baseline data was collected in 2016 (April-May) by a team of Sierra Leonean and Liberian research assistants, overseen by researchers from Swansea and Wageningen university. In 2017, footpaths were upgraded to motorcycle taxi navigable tracks by an American NGO (Global Communities) and funded by GIZ. In 2018 the research assistants and main researchers returned and conducted the endline household surveys (again during April-May) in the communities along the tracks and in the control communities along the footpath. Key findings are published in: JENKINS, J., PETERS, K. & RICHARDS, P. 2020. At the End of the Feeder Road: assessing the Socio-economic Impact of Upgrading Rural Footpaths to Motorcycle Taxi-Accessible Tracks in Liberia. NJAS – Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences. Vol. 92, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.njas.2020.100333This research will answer questions which directly fall under the remit of 2 of the 3 research questions of the ESRC-DFID Poverty Alleviation Research call, focusing on 'factors shaping pathways into and out of poverty ...' and 'measures that can be taken to reduce the risks and impact of violence and instability on the poorest...' Some of the world's poorest people are found in isolated African villages. Lacking market access, rural producers typically earn little from whatever they produce, and this perpetuates subsistence production. Many of these farmers are women. Their poverty results from a combination of factors, some of which interlock in a vicious circle comprising lack of labor, finance and market access. Even though farmers may be willing to produce more for markets, better roads are a pre-condition for agricultural development, but are...