Which of the following are tools of good governance? Social Audit Separation…

CONCEPT

Good-governance tools are operational mechanisms through which citizens can obtain service standards, access public information, and audit public action.

A constitutional design principle may support good governance without itself being an operational accountability tool in this classification.

APPLICATION

Social audit enables public scrutiny of programmes and expenditure. A Citizen’s Charter states service standards and commitments. The Right to Information enables access to public records. Separation of powers instead distributes authority among state organs and creates constitutional checks and balances. Therefore statements 1, 3 and 4 form the required set.

CONTRAST

• The code 1, 3 and 4 groups social audit, Citizen’s Charter and the Right to Information without adding the constitutional design principle.

• The code 2, 3 and 4 replaces social audit with separation of powers, mixing a constitutional structural principle with two operational governance tools.

• The code 1 and 4 includes two accountability mechanisms but leaves out the service-standard mechanism of the Citizen’s Charter.

• The code 1, 2, 3 and 4 includes separation of powers along with the three operational governance tools.

CROSS-CHECK

The three retained items map respectively to public audit, declared service standards, and access to information. The remaining item concerns constitutional allocation of state power.

RESULT

Hence the answer is 1, 3 and 4.