Da Nang has scored 45.36 points and it has been ranked amongst the top localities having the highest scores in the Viet Nam Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index (PAPI) 2018.

The ‘one-stop-shop’ mechanism at the Da Nang Administrative Centre

The results were released at a ceremony in Ha Noi on Tuesday which was co-organised by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Viet Nam, the Centre for Community Support and Development Studies (CECODES), and the Centre for Research and Training of the Viet Nam Fatherland Front (VFF-CRT).

PAPI consists of 8 dimensions. Amongst them, 6 basic dimensions are citizens’ participation at grass-roots level, transparency, vertical accountability, control of corruption, public administrative procedures, and public service delivery. Meanwhile, the 2 newly-added ones are environmental governance and e-governance.

A total of 14,300 citizens, randomly selected from 63 localities nationwide, were interviewed for the PAPI 2018. The aim was to assess citizens’ satisfaction with national and local government performance in governance, public administration, and public service delivery.

According to the PAPI 2018 report released at the ceremony, 2018 was the first year that all 6 basic dimensions had seen remarkable improvements.

In particular, the majority of the interviewees said that they highly appreciated the localities for their great efforts in enhancing public services and administrative procedures, as well as were satisfied with public medical and educational services as 87% of the national population having their health insurance cards.

Most notably, nearly 60% of the interviewees said that the corruption at commune and ward levels has significantly reduced over the past 3 years, whilst around 50% of them said state-level corruption tended to continue declining.

In addition to the above-mentioned positive changes, the PAPI 2018 report showed poverty was still the most concerned issue amongst Vietnamese citizens although the country recorded the highest economic growth of 7% last year. Moreover, income inequality was also a factor that made people feel insecure.

Besides, the significant decline was reported in the 2 newly-added dimensions: environmental governance and e-governance.

The report also stated that Vietnamese people tend to protect environment, with most of the interviewees saying that they supported the building of power plants using environmentally -friendly fuels in their localities.