Use of Location-Allocation Models for Improving the Geographical Accessibility of Rural Services in Developing Countries

Improved geographical accessibility to basic services for rural populations is a goal of most governments in developing countries. Yet, only rarely have formal methods for determining optimal locations (location-allocation models) been used as an aid to decisionmaking. The use of location-allocation models in health services development and in regional settlement planning are reviewed and compared to school location planning where these models have not been used. Further research is needed to determine the appropriate objective functions, the roles for modeling in the context of decentralized decisionmaking and the efficiency of past processes of location decisionmaking.