in only in the dominican republic ecuador guatemala peru and trinidad and tobago was social spending below of gdp a number of countries had been allocating more than of gdp to social spending since the early s chile costa rica and the plurinational state of bolivia are now part of this group see figure as a ratio of gdp el salvador increased the macroeconomic priority of public social spending by more than from of gdp to of gdp colombia the dominican republic ecuador guatemala nicaragua and paraguay more than doubled their macroeconomic effort between and