The Good Governance Index

Good Governance Index (GGI)

The Good Governance Index is a practical and comprehensive framework that assesses the state of governance in Indian states and union territories and provides state and district rankings.

GGI’s goal is to create tools that can be used consistently across the state to assess the impact of various central and state government interventions, including UT. Based on the GGI framework, this index provides a country-wide comparison chart while fostering a competitive spirit for improvement. According to GGI 2021, 20 countries have improved their combined GGI score from the GGI 2019 index score. GGI aims at semi-annual exercises.

One of the requirements for maintaining index relevance is a gradual progression that takes into account changing scenarios. To this end, the GGI framework remains flexible for improvements/revisions as needed. The principles adopted in the design of the index and used in 2019 have been tuned to include input and process-based indicators as well as results and output-based indicators. This is in line with the evolutionary approach to building an index and making it a broad base, as well as an overall measure of governance. The presented GGI framework contains both qualitative and quantitative aspects of governance, but index calculations take into account quantitative indicators, qualitative, input, and process-based. A complete framework for indicators is included in a new chapter called GGI. Introduced in 2020-21.

The Good Governance Index 2021 consists of 10 sectors and 58 indicators. GGI is a comprehensive and actionable framework that assists in assessing the status of state and union territory governments and enables state or district ranking. The GGI was created with the aim of providing tools that can be used consistently across the state and UT to assess the impact of multiple interventions by the central and state governments.

Good Governance Index 2019

GGI 2020-21 scores and rankings are calculated based on 58 indicators and 10 areas instead of 50 indicators and 9 areas of GGI 2019, after ignoring the old indicators, including the new indicators. The revision of the list of indicators also led to the reallocation of weights. In addition, many more other state categories are divided into two categories, Group A and Group B, which are not part of GGI 2019, so the ranks of GGI 2019 and GGI 2020-21 between states and UT.

DARPG and GoI have decided to improve their previous efforts for GGI by 2019. One of the requirements for maintaining the relevance of each index is to progress incrementally while maintaining the changing scenario and adding new metrics in the form of new indicators and sectors. Along with the above objectives, the GGI framework remains flexible for improvement / Revised as needed. In addition, GGI 2019 has been critically reviewed by various state governments / UTs and scholars and has been highly appreciated and provided some insightful inputs/suggestions.

The addition of Citizen-Centric Government as a new sector to the nine sectors that formed the core of GGI 2019 has been well received and is now included as the tenth sector of GGI 2020-21. These indicators will not be repeated in GGI 2020-21 as all countries are 100% compliant with some indicators. Instead, 16 new indicators are included through consultation, based on contributions received from countries.

It has been decided that the key aspects of GGI 2019 will remain unchanged. To make it easier to read, the GGI 2020-21 report repeats the core structure of the GGI Framework, which was part of the GGI 2019 report, and specifically mentions the changes made in the GGI 2020-21.

Guidance for indicator selection has changed from GoS on Governance. It proposes to include only results and/or result-based indicators, and some proxy indicators (input and/or process-based) are included if data for such indicators are not available. The iterative process with various stakeholders, including GoS on governance, Detailed consultations by having made 50 indicators part of GGI 2019.

Conclusion

One comprehensive Good Governance Index (GGI) framework is under development by Hyderabad, with Governance Secretary Group (GoS), Administrative Reform and Public Institution Complaints (DARPG), Government of India (GoI), and Hyderabad as technical partners.