Integrated, innovative strategies to improve the accessibility and sustainability of deep rural areas
The dilemma facing South Africa with respect to rural transport is more difficult to address if one’s approach is not developmental in nature and orientation. Following a common realisation that inadequate rural transport infrastructure and lack of accessibility and mobility pose important constraints to rural development, one tends to look for an enduring “marriage” between land-use and transport planning. But because of the challenging conditions in South Africa's rural areas, it becomes a mammoth task to bring this marriage to the fore.
This article examines which public programmes and which socio-economic development indicators have had an impact on contraceptive practices and fertility in a selected group of villages in Comilla district of Bangladesh. It finds that equitable even-handed development may be a good contraceptive but is not a realistic alternative to family planning effort....This research undertaken in 1985 replicates a similar knowledge attitudes and practice (KAP) type study undertaken in these same villages some 20 years earlier in 1967/68....Thus the two studies provide a unique look at demographic behavioural characteristics when these agricultural development programmes were in an early stage and then 20 years later. (EXCERPT)