| dc.description.abstract | In Kenya as in other less developed countries, most of the poor
people are found in the rural areas. The rural areas are less
developed than the urban areas, despite the fact that about 90%
of the people live in the rural areas engaged in agricultural
activities, arid despite that agriculture accounts for about
70% of exports and 30% of the G.D.P.
This situation arose, in other countries in general and Kenya
in particular, because the previous development policies and
decisions favoured the urban centres more than rural areas. But
later, it was realised that any development effort without stress
on development in the rural areas was liable to fail. The previous
policies resulted in high migration influx in few urban
centres causing many problems including unemployment in the
urban areas. So as early as 1969 this problem had been realised
in Kenya and several programmes and projects were planned to
develop the rural Grea (S.R.D.P., designated service centres
and many others )
Include among the factors which influence rural development are
an efficient and reliable transport system. In the past in
Kenya a major stress was on trunk reads in general and development
of efficient road system in few regions especially the white
Highlands. The study areas which was among the former Native
Reserves has got very good trunk roads system which transverse
it and mostly carries through traffice to or from Uganda and
are inadequately linked to the road system within the district.
There is a high potential in the district despite low standard
of living and comparatively low levels of economic production.
One of the factors which contributes to the under utilization of
resources is the poor state of roads , where 93. 7% of the
roads length are earth and gravel, and are wet, muddy and
impassable when it rains.
Many of the service centres plus other resources use areas are
well served by roads except few places in the district. But
regarding the condition of the roads, this is not true as most of
the people are cut off from these centres and the services in them
for sometime in the year. Therefore, there was need to improve
the access roads in the district. There was also need to make a
provision for the feeder roads especially j.n the planned sugar
and rice schemes.
This study has tried to show that there ere many facilities and
services which contribute towards rural development. Rural development,
by itself is a vague term which has not been adequately
defined. But there have been several definitions on rural development,
and from them it can be stated that in order for rural
development to be attained there should be provision of economic
and social services and physical facilities, transport8tion tokes
a prominent part and the lack of transportation can have adverse
effects on development. Innovations usually move along transport
channels and for development in the rural areas to take
place, innovations are very important.
In Kenya, within the transportation network, the roads are most
flexible than rail, water and air systems. The roads are also
more adaptable for travel in the remote rural areas. Access
roads which are comparatively cheaper to construct than other
types of roads, increase accessibility in the rural areas.
These type of roads if improved upon, have a vital role to
play in the development of the rural areas! | en_US |
