Social Indicators: a Third World Perspective

Social Indicators provide data for assessing the social issues and concerns for human welfare inherent in the concept of sustainable development, particularly in the context of economic structural adjustment. They give a broader social view of development.1 The World Bank is now the only institution that regularly publishes, on an annual basis, detailed data on social conditions for all countries of the World. This information is contained in the Bank's Social Indicators of Development Report (SID), the latest edition of which came out in December 1989.2 The data published form a subset of a much broader array of social statistics of varying reliability held on file in the Bank's central data base. Since the Bank is organized according to geographical regions for operational purposes, and implements policy country by country, the data are arranged primarily on a national basis. Statistical series published by the Bank, therefore, mostly reflect country specific definitions and classifications. This has both advantages and disadvantages, but it means that in some cases international comparability may be sacrificed for national relevance. The Social Indicators Report, however, also contains several World Tables on special topics where certain selected indicators, judged to be more comparable and critical than others, are shown for all countries.