Bridges & Roads
Lack of transport infrastructure makes it virtually impossible for the poor to escape the poverty trap. Helvetas provides technical assistance to an SDC project that helps some 1,000,000 people every year to get better access to markets, schools, and hospitals in Nepal.
Why rural access matters
What comes to our mind when we think about supporting the poor? Helping them to acquire education, grow and market crops, build hospitals? Very often, however, the problem is not the absence of schools, markets, and medical facilities. It is the access to them that is the challenge. In Nepal, Helvetas has a long history of providing technical assistance for the construction of trail bridges under an SDC project, Trail Bridge Support Unit.
The construction of trail bridges means that children have a safe journey to school, farmers can access markets, and the sick can visit a doctor before it’s too late. Rural communities no longer have to risk their lives crossing rivers and gorges, or be stranded without access to vital resources and services.
Amritha Bhandari, mother and owner of a snack bar by the Ranighat suspension bridge, Hariharpur, Nepal
Our work
Helvetas believes that efficient transport infrastructure is key to breaking the cycle of poverty. We improve the capacity of local communities to construct roads and bridges and empower local governments and other stakeholders to improve rural access.
In the past five years the collaboration between SDC, the government of Nepal and Helvetas has helped over 5,000,000 people gain improved access to schools, markets and hospitals thanks to trail bridges.
Our Expertise
Helvetas’ approach builds on 60 years of experience in the sector: from constructing a bridge to developing a sector-wide approach. Our multilingual Rural Access team provides advisory services both to Helvetas and external clients.
