In light of the return to peace and the economic upswing, Mozambique's human development has been analysed by Mozambican intellectuals in an initiative encouraged by the UNDP over the past three years.

This initiative is not confined merely to the faithful reproduction of the concept of human development as articulated and developed by its proponents. It intends, above all, to emulate also the spirit achieved, through a non-prescriptive approach to questions sometimes regarded as uncomfortable, but relevant to development in Mozambique. The starting point is that the analyses must be supported on a solid, reliable and up-to-date statistical basis, which allows one to analyse and problematise processes whenever possible. Close cooperation with the National Institute of Statistics (INE) in the preparation of these Reports has allowed access to, and use of, solid and reliable data.

This effort is beginning to bear fruit, not only through winning awards, as described in Box 1.3, but above all by recognition of the report as a working instrument, and as a reference point in planning and intervention in, the country's development at various levels.

The first national human development report was drawn up in 1998, under the theme "Peace and economic growth: Opportunities for human development". In this report, the concept of human development, the basis of the data for constructing Mozambique's HDI, and its evolution, were discussed. The objective of the report was to encourage reflection on the development challenges that Mozambique was facing and continues to face, from a human development perspective.

The main thesis of the 1998 report was that the advent of peace and economic growth represented opportunities for human development. But for this to take place, it was necessary to advance from the pursuit of macro-economic equilibrium to the drafting of deliberate policies that would allow the Mozambican population to make the most of the environment created so as to reduce gradually the sharp level of deprivation.

The first chapter summed up the concept of human development and its importance in the debate on development. Chapters I and II analysed the components of the HDI, and the evolution of the index in recent years. These chapters also referred to the need for future research around the HDI in order to study regional and provincial differences, and differences between sexes and among the main regions, when the statistical basis for this was available.

Chapters 3, 4 and 5 discussed peace and economic growth and attempted to assess to what extent economic growth was being translated into human development in Mozambique.

The report also showed that Mozambique needed to ensure a transition from national insecurity to real human security, including freedom from fear and freedom from want. While freedom from fear could be achieved through effective social peace, freedom from want can only be achieved by sustainable human development.

The case selected for debate in the report was the development of cashew production, with the aim of understanding the complexity of the ties and agents of economic growth and of human development.

The 1999 report, entitled "Economic growth and human development: Progress, obstacles and challenges", took up the challenge, launched in the first report, of disaggregating the HDI, in order to estimate differences in the levels of human development in the various regions of the country.

Through this exercise, the report attempted to make this instrument of measuring development operational within Mozambique. To this end, a methodology was developed for disaggregating the GDP by province, first in order to estimate the contribution of each region to the production of the nation's wealth, and secondly, the HDI of each administrative region, in order to analyse the differences and similarities among the regions.

The main concern of the exercise was to provide a solid conceptual framework, supported on a reliable and up-to-date statistical basis, for the debate on regional asymmetries in order to pr event the emotion of political debate from creating conditions propitious for the fragmentation described in Box 1.3.

The report also analysed the role of wage labour in the survival of rural households and the challenges to human development that arise from the threat of HIV/AIDS. The 1999 report also tried to analyse in rather more depth and to update the analysis and estimate of the main human development indicators in Mozambique.

The current report whose theme, as mentioned in the introduction, is "Education and human development: Trajectory, lessons and challenges for the 21st century", also lays particular stress on the regional and provincial disaggregation of the data so as to make the report not only a reference point for analyzing development, but above all an essential instrument in planning and policy development. It analyses the evolution of human development in Mozambique in 1999 on the basis of up-to-date information, including a brief description of the evolution of the country's HDI in 1999, and makes an estimate for 2000.

It also analyses the performance of human development indicators in the various regions of the country, taking as its basis the economic development of the regions, as well as the behaviour of the other HDI variables during the period under analysis.