Article

Building More Than Roads: The Wider Impacts of Climate Resilient Transport Infrastructure

2026-09-11 · By Zeevik Halber, CEO, AnyWay Solutions

Climate-resilient transport infrastructure can deliver far more than improved mobility. Drawing on the rehabilitation of Papua New Guinea’s Enga Highway, this article explores how reliable roads can expand access to markets, healthcare, education and livelihoods. It also shows why measuring lived community outcomes is essential to understanding the true social and economic impact of infrastructure investment.

What if the true measure of infrastructure were not what we build, but what communities are able to do because of it?

For people in remote communities in developing nations, a road is more than asphalt. It can mean getting produce to market before it spoils, reaching a clinic in an emergency, sending a child to school safely, or deciding that it is finally possible to build a business.

That is the lesson emerging from the rehabilitation of Papua New Guinea’s 67-kilometre Enga Highway. More than a decade after rehabilitation began, the road is showing how climate-resilient infrastructure can become a foundation for wider economic and social development.

But there is an equally important lesson for business: building infrastructure is not the same as creating impact. To understand whether an investment is genuinely changing lives, we need to listen to the people who use it.

Start with people, not just performance indicators

Infrastructure projects have traditionally been judged by familiar measures: kilometres constructed, budgets spent and projects delivered on time. These indicators matter, but they do not tell us what happens next.

An impact assessment undertaken by AnyWay Solutions and Rural Senses combined quantitative research with conversations involving 174 stakeholders, including farmers, transport operators, households, healthcare workers and local businesses. Local surveyors spoke with communities in their own languages, while voice-based technology enabled people to describe their experiences rather than simply selecting answers from a questionnaire.

The findings were striking: 100% of communities consulted reported population growth following the road rehabilitation, with 80% describing that growth as significant. People spoke about families moving closer to healthcare and schools, businesses emerging along the roadside and new economic opportunities attracting residents.

In other words, the road did not simply change journeys. People began reorganising their lives around its reliability.

Climate resilience multiplies development

The Enga Highway also challenges us to think differently about climate-resilient infrastructure. A road that is built for today’s conditions but repeatedly damaged by climate-related pressures cannot reliably support tomorrow’s development. By contrast, infrastructure designed to remain functional over time can provide a stable platform for investment, livelihoods and public services.

The rehabilitation used climate-resilient engineering approaches, including pavement strengthening, designed to improve durability and reduce future deterioration. More than 14 years of sustained performance provided an opportunity to examine what happens when infrastructure remains dependable over the long term.

The assessment found improvements across multiple dimensions: mobility, market access, healthcare, education, transport services and local economic activity. Farmers could move goods more easily. Businesses saw increased customer flows and revenues. Healthcare access improved, while students could reach schools more reliably.

The business case is therefore broader than the road itself. Resilient infrastructure creates the conditions in which other investments can succeed.

Technology is powerful, but does not replace local knowledge

An interesting part of the Enga experience is the combination of human insight and technology.

Satellite imagery showed expansion in built-up areas between 2017 and 2024. Geospatial data helped map communities and respondents. Artificial intelligence supported transcription, translation and analysis of interviews, making it possible to identify patterns across large volumes of qualitative evidence.

But technology did not replace local knowledge. Satellites could show what changed. Community members could explain why it mattered. This points to a more collaborative model for development: businesses, governments, communities, researchers and technology providers each contribute something different. The strongest evidence, and ultimately the strongest decisions, come when those contributions are connected.

From building roads to building possibility

The bigger opportunity is to apply this thinking far beyond one highway. If governments want their infrastructure investments to generate lasting development, they should ask questions from the outset: Whose lives are expected to change? What does success look like to them? How will climate risks affect those outcomes? And how will we know, years later, whether our investment actually delivered?

The “so what” is clear: measuring lived outcomes alongside conventional project metrics gives investors and decision-makers better evidence.

The “so that” is even more important: better evidence enables better design, stronger collaboration and investment that remains valuable long after construction crews have left.

A road can move vehicles, but climate-resilient infrastructure can move communities towards opportunity.

Read more about the Enga Highway impact assessment here: https://anywaysolutions.com/beyond-the-road-measuring-real-impact/