Participatory budgeting is emerging as an important mechanism to enable civic engagement in budget formulation. It involves getting civil society to actually partake in the making of a public budget - citizens and CSOs propose spending projects, set priorities and decide which projects get funded.

Decentralization can be viewed as a process with varying degrees of devolution of functions and finances to the local bodies. Participatory planning is part of the decentralization process and it aims to identify the critical problems, joint priorities, elaboration and adoption of a socio-economic development strategies.

Citizen Report Card is a tool to facilitate improvements in public service delivery. The Citizen Report Card is an assessment of public services by the users of public through survey methods. It reflects the actual experience of people with a wide range of public services.

The community score card (CSC) process is a community based monitoring tool that is a hybrid of the techniques of social audit, community monitoring and citizen report cards. Like the citizen report card, the CSC process is an instrument to exact social and public accountability and responsiveness from service providers.

Social Audit may be defined as an in-depth scrutiny and analysis of the working of any public utility vis-a-vis its social relevance. It is a tool through which government departments can plan, manage and measure non-financial activities and monitor both internal and external consequences of the department/organisation's social and commercial operations.

Social Impact Assessment can be defined in terms of efforts to assess or estimate, in advance, the social consequences that are likely to follow specific policy actions (including programs and the adoption of new policies), and specific government actions. It is a process that provides a framework for prioritizing, gathering, analyzing, and incorporating social information and participation into the design and delivery of developmental interventions.

In the light of changing aspirations of the citizens, it is incumbent on the State to provide ways and means to enhance the role of citizens in the decision-making process and facilitate better State-Society articulation. Citizens' Surveys assume importance in this context. The tool below supplies the necessary information regarding survey methodology in simple, non-technical language.

The Citizen's Charter is a written, voluntary declaration by service providers that highlights the standards of service delivery that they must subscribe to, availability of choice for consumers, avenues for grievance redressal and other related information. Citizen's charter can thus be used as a tool for enhancing standards of service delivery and fostering greater public accountability.

The People's Estimate is an estimate that can be prepared in local language through a participatory process by using similar standard specifications but based on local market rates and local units. Execution of public works through the People's Estimate entails a participatory process whereby public works can be undertaken at the local level through people's participation in estimate-design, execution and monitoring of works.