Evaluating Social Development: Outcomes and Impact: A Review of the Current State of Play

Abstract

Since the late 1970s the term 'social development' has becorne an increasingly dominant element in the analysis of the problems of both developed and less developed countries and in strategies proposed to tackle them. While this social development was seen as having certain material or quantitative objectives, it was recognised that it also involved a range of less material and more qualitative objectives or processes which were equally critical to its effective implementation. It could be argued that it was the Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) in the late 1970s and early 1980s who took the lead in this respect and who began to support and to promote programmes and projects which had clear less material and more qualitative social development objectives (Oakley and Winder, 1980: Howes, 1991.) The 1980s saw a veritable explosion in this type of development intervention, much of it emphasising development 'as a process' and based around objectives which contained substantial qualitative characteristics: for example, organisational development, participation, self-reliance and empowerment. The bi-lateral and multi-lateral agencies followed suit towards the end of the 1980s and it could be argued that in the mid-1990s the 'development community' as a whole has at least recognised, if not openly espoused, a broader and less predominantly quantitative understanding of social development. (World Bank, 1994: Midgely, 1995.)