2. Poverty Focus
As originally conceived, the project would have opened up feeder roads but it was not certain that the benefits would have accrued to local people. Applications for land accessible by the newly-rehabilitated roads has grown rapidly, specifically from companies whose indigenous and developmental interests in the area were questionable and whose interest threatened the unofficial tenure of roadside populations. A local NGO, ORAM, has been contracted by the project to work with populations to raise awareness about issues connected with land tenure, and to help them apply for it.

The development of the socio-economic component is another positive result of adopting a livelihoods perspective. Initially this element was introduced merely to monitor the impact on the livelihoods of people working on the roads. The project now views this research component rather differently; where findings directly touch on people's livelihood concerns and strategies, they have formed the basis for action. An example is the raft of health awareness activities implemented as a result of socio-economic studies on the health of road gang workers. This dynamic response is characteristic of SL approaches, which seek to understand and learn from change, and to mitigate negative patterns of change.

The evolution of these developments has not changed the overall outputs but has significantly changed the approach and underlying 'raison d'être' of the project; today it focuses on answering the question: which stakeholders will be most affected by the road and how will the road affect their livelihoods? Thus the original project 'end' of building a road to provide physical access has become the 'means' to both build up further assets (physical, financial) and to limit potential negative effects (HIV spread, environmental degradation, eviction) caused by rehabilitated roads on poor people.