The complexity of evaluating social development

The decade of the 1980s has been called the “lost decade”, mainly in terms of the economic growth, investment and output of the countries of the region. However, the fragmentary evidence available makes such a summary description seem inappropriate for what happened in the social area. In view of the institutional inertia, the delayed effects of policies conceived and implemented under more favourable economic conditions than those of the 1980s, and particularly the will of governments to render some areas of welfare independent of economic fluctuations, a subtler evaluation of social development during the decade is called for.