Over 14,700 citizens are interviewed for the 2020 PAPI Report. (Photo: UNDP) Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnam saw an incremental progress in national governance and public administration performance during the 2016 – 2021 government term, with control of corruption showing the strongest improvement, according to the 2020 Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index (PAPI 2020).
The report was released in Hanoi on April 14.
Since 2018, PAPI has been co-funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) of Australia, the Embassy of Ireland and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Vietnam.
The report presents findings on how provinces performed in 2020, as well as areas of progress and setback over time, across the eight PAPI dimensions (Participation at Local Levels, Transparency in Local Decision-making, Vertical Accountability Towards Citizens, Control of Corruption in the Public Sector, Public Administrative Procedures, Public Service Delivery, Environmental Governance, and e-Governance), as well as in the aggregate PAPI scores.
The report, which assessed citizen experiences with national and local government performance in governance, public administration, and public service delivery, showed that the Control of Corruption in the Public Sector dimension has improved significantly each year since 2016. This year, none of the 63 provinces and cities were in the top performing group in all eight dimensions.
Vertical Accountability has also steadily improved during the 2016 – 2021 term. This improvement reflects increased contact between citizens and local officials in commune, village and mass organization offices.
Dimensions posting declines included Participation at Local Levels and Public Administrative Procedures.
The northern province of Quang Ninh topped the 2020 PAPI with an aggregate dimensional performance score of 48.881. It was followed by Dong Thap (46.961) and Thai Nguyen (46.471).
“New features of the 2020 PAPI Report include insightful findings on the performance of local governments across two terms (2011 – 2016 and 2016 – 2021); experience of internal migrants with accessing services in receiving provinces; and voter perception of women in leadership roles,” UNDP Resident Representative in Vietnam Caitlin Wiesen said in her opening remark.
A senior citizen is interviewed for the 2020 PAPI Report. (Photo: UNDP) “As the Government embarks on a new term, PAPI provides rich and deep datasets on citizens’ perception of local government achievement in each of the 63 provinces and cities and important metrics to review and further improve their performance across eight key dimensions of governance.”
Analysis in the 2020 PAPI Report shows that citizen engagement and anti-corruption efforts have a positive correlation with Vietnam’s ability to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I am delighted to see that there has been an improvement in provincial governance and public administration performance,” noted Australian Ambassador to Vietnam Robyn Mudie.
“This improvement may have contributed to Vietnam’s successful response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings from the 2020 PAPI Report show that there is a correlation between good governance and effective pandemic responses. In other words, good governance matters. Looking ahead, improving governance will prove extremely useful in managing other unexpected emergency situations in Vietnam.”
Over 14,700 citizens were interviewed for the 2020 PAPI Report. This is the largest number of citizens to participate since the survey was first conducted nationwide in 2011. For the first time, the survey also gathered responses from citizens with temporary residence registration status. Nearly 300 migrants were surveyed in six centrally governed cities and provinces (Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Bac Ninh, Da Nang, Dong Nai and Binh Duong).
Responses by non-permanent residents provided a better understanding of the effect of internal migration on provincial performance in governance and public administration. The analysis shows that migrants tend to be poorer and have fewer household assets and less income than permanent residents and they tend to be women. Correspondingly, there is a significant gap in migrants’ experience with governance compared to permanent residents in the same village. This data is critical for the design of inclusive governance solutions in which the migrant population is not left behind.
“In order to narrow these gaps, provinces receiving internal migrants need to focus on addressing the information needs and expectations of both permanent and non-permanent residents. The current efforts to create national database systems on population and issue digitized citizen identification cards are steps in the right direction. Having a universal identification number will enable citizens to access governance and public services equally regardless of their places of residence within the country,” Caitlin Wiesen said.
“We hope that PAPI will continue to serve as a reliable policy monitoring tool that helps promote government accountability and reforms, thereby furthering modern governance. We also hope that PAPI will continue to provide valuable independent data and information for our oversight and social feedback functions at the Vietnam Fatherland Front so that we can be more inclusive, constructive, science-based and empirical,” said Nguyen Huu Dung, Vice President of the Central Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front./.
