GROWTH AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT: COMPARATIVE LATIN AMERICAN EXPERIENCE

T may not be necessary to dwell at great length on the basic notion that human development should be viewed as the bottom-line or basic objective of human activity, and that economic growth should be viewed as a contributor to it, rather than as the end product. The intellectual antecedents of this notion are well established in both the original "basic needs" approach of the International Labour Organization (ILO), later taken up by the World Bank, as well as Amartya Sen's concept of capabilities. 1 In its broadest sense we define human development as permitting people to lead longer, healthier, and fuller lives. More narrowly, we can interpret human development as reflected in the status of people's levels of health and education. This paper focuses on the two-way relationship between economic growth and human development, focused on Latin America. The intention here is to try and understand this relationship by discussing interesting and relevant regional case studies. Section II discusses the conceptual framework relating growth and human development.2 Section III begins by outlining some of the relevant comparative international evidence, discussing the results and their implications for economic growth as related to human development. It then turns to the situation facing indi- vidual Latin American countries, focusing on differential trends over the past few decades. Section IV provides brief conclusions for policy. II. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK