Future roads
© Vincent Moseti

Future Roads: Assessing the political motives, economic responses, and environmental costs of rural road infrastructure development in Kenya and Namibia

In this project, we assess the role of politics in road network development in Kenya. Specifically, we are interested in understanding if and how electoral motives by incumbents drive road infrastructure distribution.

Secondly, we evaluate the road-induced tradeoffs between socioeconomic development and environmental conservation in the rural areas of Kenya and Namibia.

Keywords

Roads, Rural areas, political economy, Nature Futures Framework, Impact evaluation, Land degradation and transport economics

Countries

Kenya and Namibia

Duration

4 years
(until December 2025)

    Methodology

    We take an inter- and transdisciplinary approach to achieve the project’s objectives.

    First, basing on well-established theory on distributive politics from political science, we evaluate the relationship between politics and road development using geospatial datasets and econometric modeling techniques. 

    Secondly, we engage various stakeholders especially the rural dwellers in Namibia to develop current and future scenarios of road impacts based on the NFF framework.

    Finally, we jointly evaluate the socio economic and environmental impacts due to roads using existing impact evaluation techniques and borrowing from other disciplines including remote sensing and geographic analysis and conservation biology.

    Publications

      • Moseti, V., Biber-Freudenberger, L., Börner, J. 2026. Votes for roads: Electoral motives of road infrastructure development in Kenya. Journal of Transport Geography, Volume 133, 104619. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2026.104619
      • Biber-Freudenberger, L., Bogner, C., Bareth, G., Bollig, M., Dannenberg, P., Revilla Diez, J., Greiner, C., Mtweve, P. J., Klagge, B., Kramm, T., Müller-Mahn, D., Moseti, V., Nyamari, N., Ochuodho, D. O., Kuntashula, E., Theodory, T., Thorn, J., Börner, J. 2025. Impacts of road development in sub-Saharan Africa: A call for holistic perspectives in research and policy. iScience, Volume 28, Issue 2. https://www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S2589-0042%2825%2900173-7
      • Kramm, T., Nyamari, N., Moseti, V., Klee, A., Vehlken, L., Anderson, D.M., Bogner, C., Bareth, G. 2025. Deep learning-based extraction of Kenya’s historical road network from topographic maps. Scientific Data 12, 1149. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-025-05442-6
      • Mtweve, P., Moseti, V., Mahmoud, N., Kramm, T., Bogner, C., Ibisch, P., Biber-Freudenberger, L. 2025. Exploring socioeconomic and environmental impacts of road infrastructure development in Sub-Saharan Africa: A systematic literature review, Environmental Development, Volume 54, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envdev.2025.101177

      Partners

      Main Cooperation Partners

      Main Funding Partner

      • University of Cologne
      • German Research Foundation - DFG

      Team

      • Jun. Prof. Lisa Biber-Freudenberger
      • Prof. Dr. Jan Börner
      • Vincent Moseti