Poor roads exacerbate inequality

By the time Nick and I got stuck in a road blockade in western Guatemala, protesters had already spent two full days lying on top of buses parked horizontally across lanes of traffic, blasting music from speakers lodged in the back of pickups. Their demand was simple: that the government commit to fixing damaged roads that they said left regions of the country dangerously disconnected from health, educational and economic services.

Eulalia Maribel Francisco Juan, 26, one of the protesters, told me that women, especially indigenous women, were left particularly vulnerable by poor road conditions. In areas with poor road conditions, she said, women like her would rather deliver at home than accept the risk that they could die on the way to the hospital.

I had tended to think of social spending as support for clinics and schools, but it was obvious in both Guatemala and Paraguay that a clinic doesn’t do any good when the roads are so poor that people can’t reach it. Likewise, farmers in poor countries often can’t access fertilizer or good seeds — or sell their crops easily after harvest — because roads, ports and other infrastructure are so weak. This trip was a striking reminder that the road to development needs to be a well-paved one.