Capital spending is often characterised as a longterm investment in the economy and recurrent spending as short-term consumption. Information on the composition of recurrent spending by economic classification - public-sector salaries, transfers and government goods and services, for example - was not available for this study but would be invaluable for better understanding the effectiveness of public spending. Social protection programmes such as health-fee waivers, emergency school feeding and humanitarian relief are typically classified as recurrent spending.