The human development sector (essentially, education, health, and social protection) plays an important role in promoting economic development and social equity, and improvement in these areas can have a salutary impact on peace and stability. This report is a compilation of three separate sector studies, covering education, health, and social protection. Notwithstanding that each study focuses on progress achieved in distinct areas, a number of cross cutting themes permeate the different chapters. The main cross-cutting threads can be summarized as follows: (i) overall public spending on human development is low given the needs of the population and is highly dependent on donor financing for a large number of activities, a situation that entails risks to sustainability and future development
(ii) intra sectoral allocation is not sufficiently pro-poor
(iii) resource allocation is inequitable
(iv) inefficiency in public expenditures, with large shares of funds going to overhead
leakage of wage funds
and low value for money
and (v) severe lack of data and capacity to monitor and analyze developments.