By IPS Correspondents
CAPE TOWN, Aug 30 2006 (IPS)

Take to the roads in South Africa, and chances are you’ll be confronted with an obstacle course that includes mind-numbing congestion, close shaves with speeding drivers, and the fog of exhaust fumes.

You may also find yourself wondering what will become of this beleaguered transport network when visitors arrive in the country en masse for the 2010 Fédération Internationale de Football World Cup.

If all goes as intended, however, choking on fumes will be the least of the fans’ problems.

Authorities are joining forces with the Global Environment Facility (GEF) with the aim of making the network more environmentally sound ahead of 2010, in part through improving mass transport in a nation where many are reliant on cars.

This builds on government’s existing plans to improve the transport sector at a cost of over 500 million dollars.

The hope is that the proposed GEF investment will also be of lasting benefit to South Africans, many of whom face great difficulties as a result of the country’s inadequate public transportation.

“Well designed, well run, and sensibly planned public transport can play a key role in cutting climate change emissions. It can also help to improve local air quality and bridge social and economic divides,” said Monique Barbut, chief executive officer of the GEF – a partnership of the World Bank, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and United Nations Development Programme.

The Washington-based facility, established in 1991, is now said to be the biggest source of grants for environmental projects in developing countries. The GEF funds initiatives in six main areas, including climate change and ozone layer depletion.

News of the facility’s planned involvement in South Africa’s transport sector came during the Third GEF Assembly, a two-day meeting that wrapped up Wednesday in the coastal city of Cape Town.

New funding for the body was announced at the assembly. Over three billion dollars have been provided by donors to replenish the GEF, with some 11 million tentatively earmarked for the South African transport project.

Proposals will have to be made by government departments in the nine cities hosting World Cup matches which hope to take advantage of this opportunity. These need to be submitted by December.

“I’m sitting in my office with proposals for tram systems, mass volume transport systems…They can carry more people, meaning that you’ll (get) a number of private vehicles off the road…in favour of safer public transport that will carry large volumes, and emit less fuel emissions,” Mathabatha Mokonyama, acting deputy director general in the Department of Transport, told IPS.

UNDP-funded consultants have reportedly been meeting officials in the nine cities, to decide where GEF investments could best be made.

“You could easily establish a bus rapid transport system by determining, for example, that one lane – which already has been tried selectively – is available for buses…People will switch to bus transport,” Achim Steiner, UNEP executive director and under-secretary general, told IPS at the GEF gathering, in reference to measures that could be taken in Cape Town to ease pressure on a main road into the city.

“You can speed up the comparative advantage of changing to public transport from individual private transport simply by making a policy decision. But it has to be supported by the users.”

Cape Town is one of the venues for the World Cup.

Pedestrian and cycle paths that complement bus routes could also be considered, notably in some of the smaller cities where matches will be played.

Efforts to make South African transport environmentally-friendly have been endorsed by renowned footballers Ronaldo Luiz Nazario de Lima of Brazil, and France’s Zinédine Zidane.

“Sub-standard public transport perpetuates poverty, generates health-threatening polluted air and contributes to climate chance, which affects everyone, everywhere,” the two noted in an Aug. 28 statement.

“We both have personal experience of this as we were both brought up in communities where poor quality public transport was all too sadly the norm.”

The plan comes on the heels of a similar initiative in Germany during the 2006 World Cup, titled ‘Green Goal’.

“Preliminary results indicate that the Green Goal in Germany, in which UNEP was involved, led to some 70 percent of fans taking public transport or using alternative modes such as cycling or walking to get to and from matches,” said Steiner in a statement.

“There were also significant achievements in areas such as energy savings, rainwater harvesting and waste minimization at stadia.”

The GEF is also funding transport-related projects elsewhere, including one in Mexico City.

The introduction of measures such as bus rapid transport and cycle paths in this city have led to a reduction in smog, says a World Bank report issued this month: ‘Promoting Global Environmental Priorities in the Urban Transport Sector: Experience from GEF Projects Implemented by the World Bank Group’.

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