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Paper short abstract

This paper investigates how inclusion is governed through accountability frameworks in international development. Analyzing the UN Disability Inclusion scorecard, it shows how equity is operationalized through performance indicators and reporting, redefining power and agency in development praxis.

Paper long abstract

This paper asks: how does inclusion operationalize power and agency in international development when analyzed through performance scorecards. Incorporating the panel’s theme of managerial rationalities of equity, the paper unpacks how moral imperatives of inclusion are translated into benchmarking frameworks of accountability that facilitates measurement, comparability, and administrative governance of equity.

Rooted in Interpretive Policy Analysis (Fischer, 2003; Yanow, 2000) the paper examines the Entity Accountability Framework and scorecards within the United Nations Disability Inclusion Strategy (2019). Approaching the scorecard as an interpretive artifact, it investigates how indicators, performance levels, and evidence requirements articulate what counts as inclusion and who has the knowledge/expertise to assess it. Hence, it examines how equity is defined through validation procedures, reporting cycles, and institutional reviews instead of evaluation of outcomes.

Therefore, the paper argues that the scorecard does not invalidate inclusion but manages it; embedding justice in alignment with bureaucratic accountability. Nevertheless, this discourse of managerial rationality anchors development praxis by limiting the policy logics of equity and the forms of agency that can be institutionally named. The analysis becomes relevant for development studies by revealing how inclusion is governed through technical expertise that critically questions the future of transformative justice within international development.