The Effect of Macroeconomic Policies in Social Development in Sudan

Abstract

The objective of this research is to study the effect of macroeconomic policies in the development process in Sudan through public spending particularly pro-poor spending on basic humanitarian development indicators (health and education) to building a human capital in Kassala State. The study used descriptive statistics approach in addition to applied econometrics approach to analyze the primary data obtained from the health and education situation survey in Kassala State. The study examined the following main contentions: determining the factors that led to initializing basic services provided by the government under liberalization policies particularly excluding poor. With availability of the services, who to benefit and the equality of distribution of these services among individuals remain questions to be answered taking into consideration the standard of living of individuals It is found that Kassala State considered as the poorest state in Sudan, and the poor particularly in El-Gash and Hamashkoraib are the worst in attainment of the basic services, where the results indicate to the deterioration of income of those people and its amount less than 2500 Dinars per month, this situation affects them negatively in satisfying their basic needs add to that the spending on Health and education, taking into account the hugeness of this cost which makes household favor the participation of their Children in family income instead of sending them to school, as known the opportunity cost of sending Children to school increases under the deteriorated economic circumstances. The policy implication of this result is that the social spending policies should be directed towards the poorest regions. Also it is found that utilizing health services is better to urban household than rural because of increase of the quality of services provided in urban areas compared to rural areas. Moreover, the majority of workers in public sector utilize the services that (is provided by health insurance. The conclusion is that the policies should focus on seeking a mechanism that may lead to enroll informal sector particularly in rural areas in Health insurance and increase the public spending particularly pro-poor spending.