Improving transport in Africa key to meeting UN goals

Public transport must be prioritized in the development of big cities across Africa for the convenience of city dwellers and the reduction of emissions to tackle climate change, said officials from the United Nations and African countries.

Many of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals depend on transport to meet their targets, the UN said. Many African countries, though, are still grappling with poor transport systems, especially in urban areas, and consequently hindering the realization of Sustainable Development Goals.

Lea Ranalder, associate program management officer for the climate change and urban environment global solutions division at UN-Habitat, said if well executed, public transport, cycling and walking can promote sustainable development and tackle climate change, thus rescuing the SDGs and Paris Agreement.

"Measures should be put in place to ensure that people can walk and bike safely, and take public service safely. It's not only about climate change, but also about road safety," she said.

Ranalder said cars are currently taking up more space and priority in urban planning across Africa, which should not be the case.

"Cars should be taken out of the city. There is need to put bike lanes, prioritize walking, biking and railway in our cities to decarbonize them and make cities livable," she said.

She added that reducing cars in the city would improve freight mobility and reduce congestion-based greenhouse gas emissions.

Lacking infrastructure

Yankuba Darboe, mayor of Brikama, one of the largest and most densely populated cities in Gambia, said the city lacks transport infrastructure designed with SDGs in mind.

He said privately run minivans dominate the country's traffic and are very polluting, in addition to roads being narrow and congested during peak hours.

"That is the sort of infrastructure that we inherited," Darboe said. "Now, we are thinking on how to develop them to be SDG compliant in terms of carbon emissions."

To achieve that goal, he said they need financial support from the central government.

Darboe said due to inadequate road infrastructure, heavy trucks are only allowed to operate at night to ease road traffic.

In a situation where secondary roads are literally nonexistent, Darboe said it is difficult to divert traffic so they end up having pedestrians, cyclists, public transport and privately owned cars using one single main road.

Michael Njonge, deputy director of urban traffic management and road safety at the Kenya Urban Roads Authority, said Kenya is facing the challenge of increasing number of cars despite the construction of several links. There is usually traffic congestion at peak hours.

To solve these challenges, Njonge said the state agency is physically separating transport vehicles with adequate traffic lights or physical barriers to ensure motorists stick to their own space.