Development and social justice: Education, training and health in Sudan


Samia S. O. M. Nour

#2013-013

This paper discusses the importance of sound policies for achieving social development and social justice in provision of education, training and health services in Sudan. Different from Sudanese literature, we provide new contributions by explaining the low commitment to the standardized international equity criterion related to the supply-demand sides and provision of education, training and health services in Sudan. We fill an important gap in Sudanese literature by explaining that regional inequality in the demand for education (share in enrolment in education) is most probably due to economic reasons (per capita income and poverty rate), demographic reasons (share in total population) and other reasons (degree of urbanization) in Sudan. We find that the increase in the incidence of high poverty rates and low per capita incomes seem to be the most important factor limiting the demand for education, notably, demand for primary education, especially for females in Sudan. The major policy implication from our findings is that poverty eradication is key for the achievement of universal access to primary education, gender equality, equity, social justice and therefore, fulfillment of the second and third UN-MDGs in Sudan by 2015. We recommend further efforts to be made to improve equitable provision of education, training and health services to enhance social justice and social development in Sudan.

Keywords: Education, training, health, supply, demand, equity, development, social justice, Sudan

JEL classification: I14, I24, I28, I1, I2, I0, I00

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