Monitoring and evaluation in disability-inclusive development: ensuring data about disability-inclusive development contributes to inclusion.

This paper seeks to raise issues associated with the purposes of data collection, instruments for measurement, approaches to data collection and analysis and implications for the lives of people with disabilities in societies where aid programs are delivered. Importantly, the paper contextualises these ideas within settings relevant to Australian aid organisations. This includes approaches which aim to achieve change (i.e. more disability inclusive societies), ideas about how change happens in diverse cultural contexts, different approaches to monitoring and evaluation, and the practices related to data collection, analysis and use.
This discussion paper seeks to raise issues and contribute to discussions about approaches which have been proposed and applied to date. It seeks to build a more nuanced understanding of appropriate processes for assessing actual changes sought than is evident from current practice.