Officials from the Vietnam Fatherland Front’s chapters in nine southeastern provinces were introduced to the Provincial Governance and Public Administration Index (PAPI) at a seminar in Vung Tau city, the southern coastal province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau on April 23.

PAPI is a policy tool that measures the administration and governance efficiency of the State administration system in all 63 provinces and cities nationwide.

The PAPI survey has been jointly conducted by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Centre for Community Support and Development Studies (CECODES) and the Vietnam Fatherland Front since 2009.

Bakhodir Burkhanov – UNDP Deputy Country Director said PAPI is an important informative indicator helping local administrations identify their strong and weak points in State management to make changes to better serve their people.

The seminar of its kind is hoped to help localities learn from good experience to improve their services.

The PAPI over the 2011-2013 period and in 2013 were presented by Jairo Acuna-Alfaro, Vietnam UNDP policy advisor and Professor Dang Ngoc Dinh, CECODES Director.

Front officials agreed that the index will be useful for the Fatherland Front and local people in their surveillance activities and when they make feedback on governance and public administration at all levels.

The central province of Quang Binh continues to top Vietnamese localities in terms of the Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index (PAPI) 2013 which was announced early this month.

The PAPI survey scrutinises six different dimensions of provincial governance and public administration. They include people’s participation at local level, transparency, accountability, the control of corruption in the public sector, public administrative procedures, and public service delivery.

According to the PAPI results, Quang Binh is the only locality that is systematically ranked at the top of all the six governance dimensions, followed by top three of the country’s PAPI-performing provinces: Ba Ria-Vung Tau, Binh Dinh and Binh Phuoc.

Meanwhile, Bac Giang, Tay Ninh, Quang Ninh and Quang Ngai provinces scored relatively low at the other end of the scale.-VNA