PAPI measures eight dimensions: participation at local levels, transparency, vertical accountability, control of corruption, public administrative procedures, public service delivery, environmental governance and e-government.

PAPI 2021 has a record number of one-on-one interviews conducted with 15,833 respondents from across 63 provinces in 2021. Building on its successful pilot study from the previous year, PAPI further explored migrants’ access to good governance and quality public services. The 1,042 non-permanent residents from 12 provinces with the highest net ratios of internal migrants revealed that the pandemic had exacerbated governance challenges for migrants and residents in receiving provinces.

Indicative of a year when Vietnam was hit hardest by the pandemic, PAPI has detected a spike in concern regarding health – jumping from 2 to 23 per cent in just two years to top the list of citizens’ greatest worries together with national economic growth and jobs, with correspondingly diminished concerns about the environment.

Survey results also reveal a further deterioration in household economic confidence with an 11 per cent decline from 2020 – the year that first saw a reversal in steady optimism in nearly a decade. This is compounded by a 10 per cent rise in respondents reporting job and income losses in 2021 from 2020.

UNDP Resident Representative in Vietnam Caitlin Wiesen said that the overall aim of PAPI was to improve the quality of government functions, the responsiveness, transparency, and accountability of public institutions as well as to monitor progress towards the realisation of the important human rights agenda. These priorities are well recognised in Viet Nam’s National Socio-economic Strategy 2021-2030, which are fundamental to the achievement of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.

The survey findings were important for deepening our understanding of the impacts of the pandemic on democratic governance, that in turn can help support the government - at both central and provincial levels - in preparing for future economic and health crises, she said.

Caption: The launch of 2021 PAPI report took place both online and offline.

Compared to 2020’s findings, 30 provinces made improvements to their performances in Public Service Delivery, Environmental Governance, and E-governance. However, 30 provinces also saw declines in dimensional scores of Participation at Local Levels, Transparency in Local Decision-making, Vertical Accountability and Control of Corruption in the Public Sector. More better-performing provinces are found in the northern regions, while most Central Highlands, South-central coastal and Mekong Delta provinces saw dips in performance.

Many provinces and cities in the leading group are concentrated in the Northern region. The central province of Thua Thien-Hue was ranked top at the PAPI 2021 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 group with the poorest performance. Of the five centrally-governed localities, HCM City belongs to the group with the lowest score. This result partly reflects the heavy impact of prolonged total social distancing due to the fourth wave of COVID-19 in the city. Hanoi had a breakthrough change in position compared to 2020 (41.630 points) to 44.447 points.

Caption: Photo for illustration. Public concern regarding health jumped from 2 to 23 per cent in just two years to the top of the list of citizens’ greatest worries together with national economic growth and jobs, with correspondingly diminished concerns about the environment.

According to the report, there was a decline in public approval of the government’s response to the pandemic to 84 per cent from 89 per cent in 2020 and more critical attitudes towards the health sector, with declining levels of satisfaction with services provided by public district hospitals.

With a slight increase in the number of citizens who revealed that bribes were necessary to realise better care at hospitals, it is also noteworthy that the dimension Control of Corruption in the Public Sector saw the first decline since the anti-corruption campaign initiated by the Communist Party of Viet Nam since 2016.

Meanwhile, the Vertical Accountability Towards Citizens dimension witnessed a sharp fall in performance compared to 2019 and 2020 – potentially a result of local governments being overwhelmed by the numbers of citizen requests for pandemic-related response and support policies in 2021. While lockdowns necessitated many aspects of citizens’ lives to move online, a large divide in access to e-government portals for e-services was evident and reflected in poor performances in e-government services during 2021.

Improvements were reported in infrastructure, water supply and sanitation, and less criminality. Other positive developments included the sub-dimension on public primary education bouncing back after an anomalous dip in 2020 when schools were not ready to cope with new COVID-19 challenges.

During the second year of the pandemic, more than 60 per cent of respondents in all provinces said their children’s schools were equipped with information and communication technology to facilitate online studies. Lower percentages, however, were found in mountainous or poorer provinces.

Migrant equality was a matter of concern as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, with clear differences also visible between the demographics of migrants and permanent residents. However, interestingly, fewer residents in all provinces expressed a desire to migrate in 2021 amid the sharp economic contraction resulting in large-scale losses of income and jobs.

Three key reasons for wanting to move in 2021 were family reunions (to move to Hanoi and HCM City), better jobs (HCM City, Hanoi and Da Nang) and a better natural environment (Da Nang and Lam Dong).

Speaking at the launch of the report, Nguyễn Hữu Dũng, Vice President of the Central Committee of the Viet Nam Fatherland Front said: “PAPI has helped to promote vertical accountability towards citizens, and contributed to innovation in the public sector to meet the Communist Party of Vietnam’s recently set goal that “people benefit”, aside from the conventional aims of “people know, people discuss, people do and people verify” in grassroots democracy implementation. This is in line with the spirit of the proposed Law on Implementation of Grassroots Democracy at the Commune Level to be discussed at the National Assembly this year.”

Similar to previous years, the 2021 PAPI Report presents detailed findings on how provinces performed across the eight PAPI dimensions as well as in the aggregate PAPI scores.