Human Development Report on Public Spending Egypt - 1997

This report tackled important dimensions concerning social spending for HD: the importance of the reallocation of public resources, the role of social assistance and insurance in alleviating poverty. The Report notes that social protection in Egypt uses two channels; on one hand, the assistance channel which consists of direct transfers to the poor (cash payments, subsidized food and services programs), and on the other hand, the income generation channel which aims at increasing the income earning capacity of the poor. The Report concluded that to reduce cost and time of social services and to increase the efficiency of government spending allocations to social assistance, the procedural arrangements should be revised. Past development experiences have shown that market mechanism alone cannot ensure good and efficient HD. Government intervention is needed to correct market failures that tend to inhibit human investment. High public social spending is not a guarantee of a high level of HD, but the degree of achievement of human development objectives depends mainly on the priority attached to social sectors, the priority of spending within the same sector, and the degree of efficiency in using the resources allocated to those sectors.