At the workshop (Photo: baochinhphu.vn) Hanoi (VNA) – Policymakers, experts and researchers from Southeast Asian countries, Australia and the Republic of Korea (RoK) gathered at a workshop in Hanoi on April 26 to discuss the significance of public reform and state capacity to national development.
The workshop was jointly held by the Institute of State Organisational Sciences under Vietnam’s Ministry of Home Affairs (ISOS-MOHA), the Korea Research Institute under the University of New South Wales (KRI & UNSW) and Thailand’s Office of the Public Sector Development Commission (OPDC).
It formed part of scientific symposiums to share experience between Southeast Asian countries, including Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Laos, and the RoK in public reform and measures to enhance state capacity.
Senior advisor of the OPDC Areepan Charoensuk said that the workshop created an opportunity to set up an effective dialogue which helps enhance the supply of public services while ensuring stable and comprehensive growth for regional countries in the long term.
Meanwhile, Seung-Ho Kwon, director of the KRI & UNSW, laid stress on public policies, which are billed as motives for national development, adding that the policies will serve future reforms.
Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Trieu Van Cuong said that the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report 2017-2018 showed that the Southeast Asian nations made notable improvements in all sectors and Vietnam upped five places to rank 55th in the list.
However, the countries still need more initiatives to improve the public sector as well as enhance state capacity to cope with instability in the international business environment and domestic challenges, he noted.
Cuong said that Vietnam’s national programme for public administrative reform has gained many robust achievements and made contributions to improving state capacity. The administrative apparatus, nevertheless, faces numerous hurdles such as cumbersome administrative system and slow progress in salary innovation, he noted.
Another expert from the KRI & UNSW, Mark Turner, held that public reform boosts national competitiveness and help save the state budget and meet expectations of the public.
The New Public Management (NPM) is an approach to effectively manage public service organisations, however, it needs more initiatives to become successful when being applied in the context of the Southeast Asian countries, he added.-VNA
VNA
