ABSTRACT
This chapter explores a wide area of literature focused on the social aspects of planning and development in the third world. It presents some major characteristics of social assessment in developing countries. First, there is not a specific field or a problem area called "social impact assessment". Second, many studies undertaken in developing countries on the social dimensions of projects are well done, but only semi-published in the sense that they are reports rather than books and articles. From a methodological point of view, cost-benefit analysis had to face some different problems in developing countries. Several developing countries have attempted to implement social indicator systems. Social indicators usually incorporate sex and age as key variables for social evaluation; and methodologies for social assessment involving community participation often give great importance to the position of women in the family and in the community.
