Quang Ninh led the country in Governance and Public Administration Performance Index

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The Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index (PAPI 2020) released this week showed that last year there had been an incremental improvement in national governance and public administration performance during the 2016-2021 government term.

The PAPI Report on Vietnam reflected an incremental improvement in national governance and public administration performance during the 2016-2021 government term.

Since 2018, PAPI has been co-funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) of Australia, the Embassy of Ireland and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Vietnam.

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.

“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 at the report launch.

“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 important metrics to review and further improve their performance across eight key dimensions of governance,” she noted.

Accordingly, 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 municipalities and provinces (Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Bac Ninh, Da Nang, Dong Nai and Binh Duong).

The dimension on Vertical Accountability Towards Citizens also steadily improved during the 2016-2021 term, mainly because an increasing number of citizens have contacted local officials, in particular village heads and People’s Council delegates.

Dimensions posting declines included Participation at Local Levels and Public Administrative Procedures.

Illustrative image. Photo: VNA

PAPI has been providing data on eight key indicators of government performance being 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.

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.

By 2020, no province or city out of 63 provinces/cities is in the group with the highest scores in all eight indicators evaluated.

However, it is noteworthy that this year, Quang Ninh is promoted 2 ranks to become the top province in the PAPI 2020 ranking with a total score of 48,811. This province leads the country in three criterias: Transparency in Local Decision Making (6,499 points); Control of corruption in the public sector (8,286 points) and Public service delivery (7,713 points).

Quang Ninh is also in the top of the country in Participation at Local Levels (5,805 points), Public Administrative Procedures (7,611 points), Environmental Governance (4,964 points) and E-Governance (3,14 points). This province ranks in the high average group in the remaining criterion - Vertical Accountability Towards Citizens (4,793 points).

Ranked second in PAPI 2020 is Dong Thap with a score of 46,961 points. This province leads the country in Environmental Governance with 5,202 points.

The third place belonged to Thai Nguyen with 46,471 points. The province ranked first in the country for Participation at Local Levels (6,216 points).

Meanwhile, the two largest cities in the country, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, are in the low ranking group.

Hanoi is in the group of 16 provinces and cities with the lowest ranking in the country with 41,629 points. The capital has the lowest scores in Public Administrative Procedures (7,169 points) and Environmental Governance (2,959 points). In the group of indicators Transparency in Local Decision Making, Vertical Accountability Towards Citizens, Control of Corruption in the Public Sector and Public Service Delivery, Hanoi also scored low on average.

Meanwhile, Ho Chi Minh City is in the group of 15 provinces and cities with low average ranking with 41,985 points. The city was underestimated in the criteria for Participation at Local Levels (4,445 points), Control of Corruption in the Public Sector (6,363 points), and Environmental Governance (2.82 points).

In terms of regions, most of the 16 provinces and cities with the highest scores this year are concentrated in the Northeast, North Central and Mekong River Delta regions. Meanwhile, the group of 16 provinces and cities is in the lowest group, focusing on the Northwest, Central Highlands and South Central Coast.

Speaking at the releasing ceremony, Australian Ambassador to Vietnam Robyn Mudie, acknowledged an improvement in provincial governance and public administration performance, which 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, she added.

Nguyen Huu Dung, Vice President of the Central Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front said he hope that PAPI will continue to serve as a reliable policy monitoring tool that helps promote government accountability and reforms, thereby furthering modern governance./.

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