Leone was home to thousands of children in extremely difficult circumstances: they had been displaced, separated from their parents, had missed out on years of schooling, were working or living on the streets, were involved in child labour, and/ or were surviving on their earning as commercial sex workers. The impact of the war added to the burden borne by children, who had already been made vulnerable in the pre-war era by a tenuous social and economic climate marked by low levels of development, poor infrastructure, under-development and high levels of corruption. 14. The civil war exerted significant influence on the developmental trajectory, and particularly the child-development path, taken in the years immediately after the war and after the ratification of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC) in 2002. During the post-war years, the GoSL focused on rebuilding service delivery infrastructure and systems and on developing programmes to address the immediate needs of particularly vulnerable groups, especially those affected by the war and those affected by HIV and AIDS, which was a growing issue in the region. 15. Over time, a number of more holistic child-development programmes were established which targeted much wider groups of children made vulnerable by their circumstances, such as their young age and poverty. This was driven in part by the recognition within the country’s Second Generation Poverty Reduction Strategy: Agenda for Change (2008-2012) that the persistently high levels of poverty and inequality affected the majority of children and that the development of the country depended on universal programmes which reached all of them rather than only the originally-targeted vulnerable minority groups. Thus, the second generation of development saw the introduction of programmes such as the Free Health Initiative (FHCI) for all children under the age of 5 years, pregnant and lactating women, the free primary school policy, as well as a number of legal reforms to expand the availability of services and support for children made vulnerable to abuse and exploitation by poverty and harmful customary attitudes and practices. However, these latter programmes were limited in number, scale, scope and efficacy, partly because of low levels of investment of public funds in social protection programmes. For example, in 2013 only 0.1 percent of the total government budget was allocated to social protection programmes. 16. Whilst the second generation of development initiatives catalyzed significant improvements in key child-specific HDI indicators such as the child mortality and primary school attendance rates, similar shifts were not observed across other domains such as secondary education and child protection. Notably, the rate of development, even in the areas where progress had been made, was sluggish; the result was that Sierra Leone’s rate of growth and development was lower than that of other HDI countries and countries in the sub-Saharan Africa. Upon reflection, the GoSL recognized that in order for the country to break out of its low-development and low-income status, massive human development gains would be required; it was recognized that these, in turn, would depend on achieving substantial improvements in the health, education and protection of all of the children in Sierra Leone from birth. Furthermore, the GoSL recognized that achieving universal improvements in child development requires the development of national programmes that provide universal services but which also eliminate the structural drivers of poor child development – namely poverty and inequality. As such, the new national development plan, The Agenda for Prosperity: Road to Middle Income Status 2013-2018, places 4  Government of the Republic of Sierra Leone Initial Report on the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child 2002-2014