Da Nang has taken one step up in the Viet Nam Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index (PAPI) 2021, according to 2021 PAPI report released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Viet Nam on Tuesday.

Da Nang ranked 7th from the bottom of 2021 PAPI rankings.

Da Nang ranked 7^th from the bottom of 2021 PAPI rankings with a total score of 42.56 out of 100 points, naming among high-middle performers.

A total of 15,833 residents, randomly selected from 63 cities and provinces nationwide, were interviewed for the PAPI 2021. The aim was to assess citizens’ satisfaction with the performance of national and local governments in governance, public administration, and public service delivery.

PAPI consists of 8 dimensions, and 6 out of 8 dimensions  are basic ones, namely citizens’ participation at grass-roots level, transparency, vertical accountability, control of corruption, public administrative procedures, and public service delivery. In addition, 2 new dimensions were included in PAPI 2019, namely environmental governance and e-governance.

Da Nang achieved 4.06 points in the rankings of citizens’ participation at grass-roots level, 5.06 for transparency, 4.27 for vertical accountability, 6.78 for the control of corruption, 7.33 for public administrative procedures, 8.25 for public service delivery, 3.23 for environmental governance, and 3.56 for e-governance.

Da Nang entered the top Vietnamese localities with highest scores in the public service delivery and e-governance categories. In addition, the city was named among high-middle performers in the category of public administrative procedures.

The city was named among low- middle performers in the categories of transparency, vertical accountability and the control of corruption while it was named among low performers in the categories of citizens’ participation at grass-roots level and environmental governance.    

Thua Thien Hue topped the 2021 PAPI rankings with a total score of 48,059 out of 100 points while Dien Bien Province came bottom of the rankings with a score of 37,223.

The 2021 PAPI report shows that COVID-19 produced negative effects on employment and earnings on a larger scale in 2021 than in 2020. The percentage of the respondents for the PAPI 2021 who lost their jobs due to COVID-19 went up by more than 10% compared to 2020, especially in Viet Nam’s economic hubs such as Ha Noi, Da Nang, Ho Chi Minh City and neighboring provinces where social-distancing measures have been put in place for a long period to mitigate the spread of the virus.

Da Nang scored 45.36 in 2018 and 44.99 out of 100 points in 2019, and it has been ranked amongst the top localities having the highest scores in the Viet Nam PAPI 2018 and 2019.

However, the city slipped in 2020 Viet Nam-wide PAPI rankings and it has fallen out of the top ten Vietnamese localities with highest scores in the rankings with a total score of  42.51, naming among low performers.

PAPI is a flagship governance program initiated by the United Nations Development Programs in Viet Nam since 2009. PAPI measures and benchmarks citizens’ experiences and perception on the performance and quality of policy implementation and services delivery of all 63 provincial governments in Viet Nam to advocate for effective and responsive governance.

Reporting by TRONG HUY – Translating by H.L