A Guide to Integrated Rural Accessibility Planning in Malawi

This paper presents a set of guidelines for the implementation of Integrated Rural Accessibility Planning (IRAP) methodology adapted for Malawi. These guidelines are based on Malawi's experience in the transition process from central level governance towards local level empowerment. IRAP is a multi-sectoral, integrated planning tool that addresses the major aspects of access needs of rural households for subsistence, social and economic purposes. IRAP integrates the access and mobility needs of the rural population, the locations of basic social-economic services and the transport infrastructure in all sectors. IRAP is participatory and pro-active: it involves communities in all stages of the planning and creates a platform for local level planners and beneficiaries to pro-actively plan for development. These guidelines describe the activities involved in the IRAP methodology with a special emphasis on the information generation process.

The document starts by discussing the importance of access in relation to rural development. It continues with an explanation of the IRAP concept. The following chapters discuss each step of IRAP in detail. IRAP consists of a number of activities from data collection to monitoring and evaluation. Steps 1, 2 and 3 analyse the role of information in the IRAP process. They include data collection, processing and analysis. These guidelines define the activities involved in each of these phases and the kind of information required. It states that the basis for the decision making process is the data collection exercise.