In prefacing the 2000 edition of Mozambique’s National Human Report, I am once again pleased to note that the country has continued to make social pr ogress in its efforts to broaden the choices available to Mozambicans as measured by the Human Development Index (HDI).

While the country remains at the tail-end of the global and regional human development rankings, the sustained and continuous social progress observed in recent years should be praised and further encouraged. Based on the historical series for the period 1996-1999, the national HDI has increased From 0.325 to 0.344 and the social components of the index are playing an ever -increasing role in the upward trend. Similarly, the provincial disaggregation of the HDI suggests that the existing regional development asymmetries are gradually decreasing.

Mozambique's National Human Development Reports of 1998 and 1999 focused respectively on two important themes of “peace and economic growth” and “economic growth and human development”. It is also gratifying to recall that the 1999 Report br ought to Mozambique two prizes in excellence awar ded at the Second Global Forum on Human Development held in Rio de Janeiro.

Since the introduction of provincially disaggregated GDP data in last year’s report, a great deal of attention has been devoted to the estimation of provincial and regional human development indices which has added substance to the debate of regional asymmetries in development in Mozambique. The reported results were well received by all and added empirical grounding to a debate that continues to be very dear to Mozambicans from Maputo to the Rovuma. This year’s results confirm that although significant asymmetries persist, the variation in human development indices around the national average is decreasing. Geographic inequalities in the distribution of the benefits of development may ther efore be declining though, one must not for get, the country as a whole remains very poor . What is required, as the authors suggest, is the levelling of benefits around an ever increasing national average or , what is commonly referred to in economic terms as pro-poor growth in all the r egions of the country.

The professional partnerships formed with nationals have once again led to the production of a Report that I find to be relevant to the prevailing realities in the country. The analysis of issues raised in the Report has gone in depth while trying constructively to provide suggestions to address the key concerns.

The Report for 2000 has chosen to address a crucial concern in the national development agenda, namely the impact of education on human development in Mozambique. The approach adopted in this Report was to see education as a fundamental human right and thus linking human rights to human development.

While the country has registered considerable progress in the area of education, many challenges still remain in a country where 60.5% of the population cannot read and write. In terms of access to education, a wide gap exists between dif ferent regions within the country and between girls and boys. The situation is even mor e pr ecarious in the rural areas where among women, only one out of 10 can read or write. This low level of literacy reduces the human development index thr oughout the country, and also constitutes a serious impediment to faster progress in this era of globalized information.

The constraints to development of the education system, which include the shortage of trained teachers, resources and education materials, clearly demand particular attention. The education sector continues to depend on exter nal assistance, though available information shows that the share of donor assistance to education declined from 63.3% in 1994 to 42.5% in 1999. As a proportion of the state budget, the share devoted to education, as well as other social sectors, has been rising since 1996 and additional public resources, previously tied up to service the country’s debt, will be reoriented to boost social sector expenditure, in the for eseable future, within the framework of the country’s Action Plan for the Reduction of Absolute Poverty (P A R P A).

W ith the growing problem of HIV/AIDS, the Report argues that the epidemic will demand profound changes in education in two dif ferent fronts, as highlighted in the prognosis for the period 2000-2010. On one hand there is the need to prepar e to accommodate the likely losses of teachers, possibly 9,200 teachers and 123 headmasters and managers, up to 17% of personnel in the education system. It is estimated that in the centre of the country the losses could be as high as 23%. On the other hand, the educational system in general and teachers in particular will continue to be fundamental agents of the behavioural change that is required to contain the threat posed by HIV/AIDS.

Once again, it has been an honour and pleasur e to associate myself with the team of national experts who have consistently devoted time fr om their busy schedules to the production of this 3^rd National Human Development Report. I want to thank especially the steering committee, working gr oup, contributors, SARDC and our editor for their dedication, which contributed in no small measur e to the quality of this work. I should also like to extend a special word of gratitude to INE, whose staff pr oduced the rich statistical information contained in this report, and Eduardo Mondlane University, our new partner in the mainstreaming of the human development paradigm in Mozambique.

Emmanuel Dierckx de Casterlé
UNDP Resident Representative
Maputo, Mozambique