Building cleaner communities in equatorial Africa: Road upgrades and household waste management in northern Benin

Abstract

Scholars have long discussed various transportation tools as key factors in building sustainable societies by either generating or reducing environmental hazards. We examine effects of road upgrades on household waste management, an environmental outcome that is less explored in prior research, yet particularly relevant in the Global South. We use the latest census and health survey data from Benin to estimate how household waste disposal practices in northern Benin were affected by a major road project that began to be used in 2011. We use difference-in-differences regression models to estimate the effect of the road project by comparing areas with and without road upgrades, before and after the construction. Results show that this road project led to a statistically significant and sizeable increase in the sustainable, service-based collection of household waste in communities that were involved in the project and were historically less developed. The positive environmental effects were concentrated among rural communities. These results illustrate that improvements in transportation infrastructure facilitate environmental management—specifically waste management in this paper—by making the delivery of environmental services more effective and accessible to ordinary people. Overall, this paper provides policy recommendation for politicians and planners to consider transportation as an integral part of sustainable social and economic development.