Can a sustainable transport road map support Africa’s development agenda?

Can a sustainable transport road map support Africa's development agenda?

Strong and sustained economic growth is delivering fresh opportunity to sub-Saharan Africa. Goods, supplies and people are on the move. On the downside, urban air pollution, traffic congestion and road fatalities are increasing. Africa has less than 3% of the world's motor vehicles yet accounts for 16% of road fatalities; hundreds of thousands each year. Vehicle emissions also contribute to urban air pollution; a problem estimated to cause 175,700 deaths in Africa each year. South Africa has the highest motorization rate and one of the highest road fatalities in the sub-Saharan African region.

Governments can reduce emissions, improve environmental health and stimulate economic activity and jobs growth by improving transport policy. The African Sustainable Transport Forum (ASTF) meeting held in October, 2014, agreed to a new policy framework for sustainable transport. This was the first time African ministers and experts convened to discuss how to tackle air pollution, promote cleaner fuels and road safety. Applauding African governments for their commitment, UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon said: "Only a few months ago, I participated in the first UN Environment Assembly, at which member countries called on the international community and UNEP to strengthen their work on air quality. I am happy to see that today we are already putting this into action through developing a sustainable transport roadmap for Africa".

Globally, air pollution is responsible for 7 million premature deaths , but lack of data in most developing countries has made it extremely difficult to quantify the contribution of the transport sector to urban air pollution. If you have visited cities such as Nairobi, New Delhi, Cairo or Dhaka then the World Health Organization (WHO) report of cities with the worst air pollution will come as no surprise. These cities have seen a rapid increase in motorization with an older vehicle fleet and a burgeoning import of second-hand vehicles from Europe, USA and Japan. An older vehicle pollutes more as they have inferior emission reduction technology, poorer fuel economy, high mileage and they tend to be poorly maintained. But few nations in Africa outside of South Africa manufacture vehicles or impose emission regulations to address the problem.


Figure 1: Cities with annual average particulate matter (PM) levels above World health Organization (WHO) guideline.
Developed countries are implementing ever more stringent vehicle emission standards through regulations governing emission limits, tests and measurement. In Europe September, 2014, Euro 6 was introduced with changes targeting lower PM (particulate matter) and (nitrogen oxides) NOX emissions. USA has Tier 2 which will be phased-out and replaced by Tier 3 vehicle and fuel standards in 2017; this will set new vehicle emissions standards and lower the sulphur content of fuel. However, these are complex measures and most developing countries are lagging behind. Putting in place vehicle emission standards and regulations that can incentivise fuel and vehicle technology improvement is no easy task. Developed countries have significant resources, often lacking in developing countries, to invest in the manufacture of cleaner fuels and fuel efficient cars. However even the progress of emission legislation in developed countries has not been without its challenges, for example, the phase out of lead in fuel, a consensus was reached in the 1970s of the health effects of exposure to air borne lead, yet it was not until the 1990s that phase out of lead became a world-wide issue. Yet in addition to the health effects of air borne lead, lead in fuel destroyed emission reduction technology such as catalytic converters intended to reduce emissions.

To aid policy makers, the UNEP Partnership for Clean Fuels and Vehicles (PCFV), the leading global public-private partnership to promote cleaner fuels and vehicles, recently launched a vehicle regulatory toolkit in East Africa. The toolkit will support developing countries to find ways to increase fuel efficiency while reducing air and climate pollutants. For example, this might be achieved through pairing vehicle emission standards with complementary fuel quality standards. The toolkit was developed in partnership through workshops in East Africa September, 2014. Discussion in the workshops focused on developing local capacity to set vehicle standards, to limit the age of the vehicle imports and to set emission limits. Participants noted that testing equipment, which is often imported, needs to be fit-for purpose for those implementing and enforcing set emission standards. The equipment needs to be light, robust, user friendly, require little maintenance, and of course be precise. Workshop participants drawn from government, private industry, civil society, and research institutions, also expressed concern over the rapid increase in the unregulated import and use of motor cycles (called bodaboda in East Africa) and 3-wheelers (called Tuk-tuk in East Africa) for public transport. These are unsafe and heavy polluters.


One promising step might be for policy makers to take note of the development of portable emissions measurement systems (PEMS) that can provide an easier means of monitoring emissions from two and three wheelers and heavy-duty vehicles. PEMS provides on-road, real time information about emissions of air pollutants, for example particulate matter (PM) and nitrogen oxides (NOX). PEMS can also be used for inspection and maintenance systems, which are key to identifying and removing heavy polluters from the road.

Vehicle fleets will keep growing in Africa. The launch of the Africa Sustainable Transport Forum is a necessary platform for Africa's policy makers to share best practices and coordinate policies for sustainable transport. The new draft policy framework for action agreed on will focus on public transport, non-motorized transport, road safety, air quality and health, energy and climate. As the president of Kenya, Mr Uhuru Kenyatta, who hosted the forum said, "Africa is growing quickly. Our people want and deserve greater and social and economic empowerment now, and our plans cannot lag behind their aspirations". It remains to be seen whether the road map adopted by the African ministers will meet Africa's development agenda and do so sustainably.