From Methodology to Application: An End-to-End Geospatial Platform for Measuring Access to Basic Services in Côte d'Ivoire
Conference
66th ISI World Statistics Congress
Format: WSC 2027: IPS Abstract
Keywords: accessibility, geospatial statistics, official statistics
Abstract
Official statistics on basic services in West Africa usually count facilities by administrative unit or measure distance to the nearest facility in household surveys. These measures ignore three things that determine actual access: the services available in neighbouring localities, travel time on the road network, and competition among all populations that can reach the same facility. We present the accessibility and remoteness indices produced by the National Institute of Statistics of Côte d'Ivoire (ANStat), and the platform developed to produce and disseminate them.
The indices combine an updated road network, with travel speeds by road type estimated from field data collection, a geolocated census of education, health and security infrastructure, and population counts by locality. Travel times are computed between all 8,396 localities of the country. For 129 types of services, we compute a two-step floating catchment area (2SFCA) index, which measures the quantity of service within reach of each locality once it is shared with all other localities that can reach it. The index is compared with official sectoral norms (e.g. pupils per teacher) and with the national average, and is complemented by a remoteness index. Results are available from the locality to the regional level.
A web application, currently being prepared for deployment, will allow planners to consult the results and simulate scenarios such as building new facilities, population growth or paving roads. For primary schools, the results show that many localities close to a school still have low access to available places, a gap that facility counts and survey indicators do not show.
Mobile phone mobility data could further improve the method by measuring actual travel patterns. We describe the full chain, from methodology to application, and discuss how other National Statistical Offices in the region could replicate it.