The Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index (PAPI) evaluates on 8 criteria including participation at local levels; transparency; vertical accountability; control of corruption in the public sector; public administrative procedures; public service delivery; environmental governance; e-governance.

At the announcement ceremony, UNDP Resident Representative in Vietnam - Ms. Caitlin Wiesen said that the overall goal of PAPI is to improve the quality of government functions, responsiveness, transparency and accountability by public institutions as well as monitoring progress on key human rights agendas. These priorities have been clearly documented in Vietnam's Socio-Economic Development Strategy in 2021-2030, which is the basic foundation for achieving the 17 sustainable development goals by 2030.

According to Ms. Caitlin Wiesen, the findings from the PAPI 2021 are important, reflecting the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the effectiveness of public governance, with the participation of the people. This helps governments at all levels prepare scenarios to respond to similar health and economic crises that may occur in the future.

Overview image of the ceremony

According to the PAPI 2021 composite index at the provincial level, compared with the results of 2020, there are 30 provinces and cities that have improved their performance in public service delivery, environmental governance, and e-governance. However, 30 provinces and cities had a decrease in scores in the content indicators "participation at local levels", "transparency", "vertical accountability", and "control of corruption in the public sector".

Many provinces and cities in the leading group are concentrated in the Northern region. Leading the summary of PAPI 2021 results of provinces and cities is Thua Thien-Hue with 48,095 points; followed by Binh Duong with 47,178 points; and Thanh Hoa with 47,102 points. In contrast, most of the provinces in the Central Highlands, South Central Coast and Mekong River Delta belong to the medium-low or lowest average group. Of the five centrally-run cities, Ho Chi Minh City belongs to the group with the lowest score. This result partly reflects the reality of the heavy impact of prolonged total social distancing due to the fourth COVID-19 wave in Ho Chi Minh City. Hanoi meanwhile has a breakthrough change in position compared to 2020 (41,630 points) with 44,447 points.

Illustrative image (source: Internet)

People care most about health and economy

The PAPI report for 2021 shows that people are most concerned with health and the economy, while the challenge of public governance increases in the second year of the Covid-19 pandemic. 2021 is also the year Vietnam is heavily affected by the pandemic, showing people's health concerns emerging, with the proportion of concerns about health and health insurance increasing sharply from 2% to 23% in the span of only two years. Health and health insurance have become the biggest concern of the people, next to concerns about the country's economic growth and employment.

Meanwhile, concerns about environmental pollution have slightly eased. The survey results showed that the rate of satisfaction with household economic conditions continued to decrease by 11% compared to 2020 when people's optimism about the household economic situation decreased for the first time in nearly a decade with annual rises. Along with that, the respondents said that they have lost their jobs but their income increased by 10% in 2021 compared to 2020.

In addition, the proportion of people's satisfaction with the response to the COVID-19 pandemic by the authorities at all levels has decreased, from 89% in 2020 to 84% in 2021. Especially, in the health sector, the level of people's satisfaction with the services of public hospitals at the district and provincial levels have decreased. Notably, the content index score of “control of corruption in the public sector” decreased for the first time since 2016 when the fierce anti-corruption campaign began.

Illustrative image (source: Internet)

The vertical accountability index score in 2021 also dropped sharply compared to 2019 and 2020. This drop may be due to the fact that local governments are overwhelmed with a large number of requests from citizens concerning policies to support and respond to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021. Besides, the implementation of social distancing requires many activities to switch to online, but the rate of using electronic public services through online public service portals of all levels of government is still very low, partly reflecting limitations in the effectiveness of e-governance in 2021.

Equality for migrants is an issue of concern as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, given the clear disparities between temporary and permanent residents in each locality. However, in 2021, the percentage of people wishing to migrate is very low, in the context of a strong economic slowdown, leading to a great loss of jobs and income on a national scale. In 2021, the three main reasons people choose to migrate are to reunite with their families (moving to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City); for better jobs (HCMC, Hanoi and Da Nang); and to live in a better natural environment (Da Nang and Lam Dong).

At the announcement ceremony, Dr. Nguyen Huu Dung, Vice Chairman of the Central Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front, commented: “The PAPI index has helped promote vertical accountability to people at all levels of government, contributing to the process of innovation and creativity in the public sector for the sake of 'people's benefits' in addition to the goals of 'people know, discuss, implement and check' in implementing democracy at the grassroots level. This is also the spirit of the draft law on the implementation of grassroots democracy to be discussed at the National Assembly this year.”./.