PAPI Index 2022 Announcement: Quang Ninh leads, Da Nang drops in rank

People come to do procedures at the Public Administration Center of Binh Lieu District, Quang Ninh. Photo: Duc Hieu/VNA

The PAPI Index is a product of research cooperation between the Center for Community Support and Development Studies (CECODES), the Center for Training and Scientific Research of the Vietnam Fatherland Front at the central and local levels, Real-Time Analysis Company and UNDP in Vietnam.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the PAPI 2022 Report Launch Conference, Ms. Ramla Khalidi, UNDP Resident Representative in Vietnam, said: The PAPI 2022 Report presents the results of feedback from more than 16,000 survey participants randomly selected from 63 provinces and cities, including more than 1,180 temporary residents. Both are record numbers in the 14 years of conducting the PAPI survey.

Quang Ninh leads, Da Nang drops in rank

The 2022 PAPI report presents the results of provincial public administration delivery in eight content indicators: Participation of people at the grassroots level; Publicity and transparency in local decision-making; Accountability to people; Control of corruption in the public sector; Public administrative procedures; Public service delivery; Environmental governance and E-governance.

There are 2 provinces, Bac Ninh and Bac Giang, not included in the assessment due to inaccurate survey data.

The provinces and cities in the “high” group include 6 provinces and cities in the Red River Delta and 6 provinces and cities in the North Central and Central Coast regions. The provinces and cities in the 14 localities in the “low” group are in the Northern midlands and mountainous regions, the Central Highlands, and the Mekong Delta.

Residents of Hoa Khanh Bac ward (Lien Chieu district) assessed that administrative procedures at the one-stop shop have been carried out more quickly and effectively. Photo: Quoc Dung/VNA

Notably, the gap in provincial-level public administration and governance performance in 2022 between the highest and lowest scoring groups tends to narrow, meaning that according to people's assessment, governance and administration performance in many provinces and cities did not increase compared to 2021.

The specific ranking results show that Quang Ninh is the leading locality, followed by Binh Duong and Thanh Hoa. Cao Bang is the locality ranked last.

Dr. Dang Hoang Giang, a member of the PAPI research team, said that among the provinces and cities, it is noteworthy that after many efforts, Hanoi has risen from a low position in 2020 to the highest position in 2022. On the contrary, Da Nang has dropped to the middle position after many years at the top.

Compared to the 2021 PAPI results, 33 provinces and cities achieved significant improvements in Dimension 1 "People's participation at the grassroots level"; 18 provinces and cities achieved significant improvements in Dimension 2 "Transparency and openness in local decision-making" and 30 provinces and cities achieved significant improvements in Dimension 8 "E-governance". However, 29 provinces and cities experienced significant declines in Dimension 7 "Environmental governance", 18 provinces and cities experienced significant declines in Dimension 4 "Control of corruption in the public sector" and 18 provinces and cities experienced significant declines in Dimension 6 "Public service delivery".

People expect effective and efficient governance.

The 2022 PAPI report reflects people’s optimism about the economy despite concerns about the impact of the pandemic. The report shows changing views on the effectiveness of local anti-corruption work amid people’s expectations for effective and efficient governance that meets the increasing needs of the people.

Vietnam’s efforts in 2022 to overcome the socio-economic impacts of two years of the Covid-19 pandemic have helped boost people’s confidence in their household and national economic conditions over the past year, with 66.1% of respondents rating the national economy as “good” in 2022 – up 19.4% from a year earlier.

Also in this question, the percentage of people assessing the country's economic conditions as "poor" decreased by 13.7% compared to 19.8% in 2021 to 6.1% in 2022.

Similarly, at the household level, the proportion of people who considered their household economic conditions to be “poor” decreased from 15.3% in 2021 to 11.4% in 2022.

Despite the perception of improved economic conditions, the impact of two years of the pandemic remains, and the survey results also show that many people are still concerned about the impact of the pandemic, with ethnic minorities and women being hit hardest due to higher rates of poverty and unstable employment among these two groups.

The shift to the post-pandemic era is also reflected in people's opinions when asked about the most important issues that the State needs to focus on solving in 2022.

The rate of choosing health care and health insurance as the most important issue decreased sharply from 23.84% according to the 2021 PAPI survey to 6.38% according to the 2022 PAPI survey.

The 2022 PAPI report shows that despite Vietnam’s strong anti-corruption efforts nationwide, citizens are still more concerned about corruption than they were a year ago. This is the first time since 2015 that the overall public sector corruption index has declined.

The survey showed that people know little about land prices, with up to 70% of respondents not knowing the land price on the market or not knowing the official land price issued by the locality.

Regarding the effectiveness of e-governance, local authorities still have much to do to encourage people to use online public services more, commensurate with the large proportion of people currently using the Internet. Regarding the use of the National Public Service Portal, the number of respondents who said they had used or had a user profile on the National Public Service Portal was still very low: less than 5% of respondents said they had used the National Public Service Portal for various purposes and about 3% had set up a user profile on this portal.

According to VNA