Development of Governance Indicators for Accessible and Inclusive Urban Developments (AIUDs)

Abstract

This paper responds to the concern with the lack of public governance indicators for Accessible and Inclusive Urban Developments (AIUDs) despite agreements in the literature and in practice to develop field-specific governance indicators to resolve intricate problems. AIUD is known as a multi-disciplinary and multi-sectorial field requiring various sectors’ involvement. The resources needed to resolve this issue are scattered across diverse sectors. Furthermore, accessibility for and inclusion of disabled and elderly people is considered a global challenge. International organizations like the United Nations (UN), the Inclusion International (II) and the World Bank (WB) have addressed this concern. The UN prioritized this vital issue in its robust Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (2015-2030). AIUDs significantly impacted social inclusion, human welfare and economic development warrants developing governance indicators. This facilitates decision making, international performance comparisons, benchmarking, assessing governance quality and adopting corrective measures which improve the service delivery system. This study endeavours to develop a set of governance indicators for AIDUs in the UAE through a systematic literature review and the inputs gleaned from a group of experts by administering a questionnaire survey.