Provinces such as Thua Thien-Hue and Tay Ninh transparently disclosed the people’s questions, recommendations, and complaints and the government’s responses over an extensive period of time (up to a few years) on the websites of relevant government agencies. Photo: Thua Thien Hue province.

First, all provinces utilised numerous and diverse communication channels between local governments and the people, including traditional methods (e.g. via regular meetings of the People’s Council at all administrative levels, or physical mailboxes at each government office), semi-traditional methods (e.g. via the email address of each government agency, online Q&A section on each government agency’s website, or hotlines directly connected to the top provincial leadership), and social media tools (e.g. Facebook and Zalo). It is worth noting that Facebook and Zalo were used extensively in all five provinces that we visited, even in considerably remote communes such as Quan Ba (Quan Ba district, Ha Giang), Quang Tho and Quang Thai (Quang Đien district, Thua Thien Hue).

Second, none of these provinces could provide a complete and official evaluation of the effectiveness of these communication channels across all administrative units, especially the semi-traditional channels and the social media channels, which appeared capable of reaching out to most people most continuously and conveniently. Provinces such as Thua Thien-Hue and Tay Ninh transparently disclosed the people’s questions, recommendations, and complaints and the government’s responses over an extensive period of time (up to a few years) on the websites of relevant government agencies. Though incomplete, these could be a source of useful information to evaluate the effectiveness and willingness of these provincial governments in engaging with the people.

Third, most ordinary people were concerned primarily with issues directly related to their livelihood and daily activities. Interactions between the people and the government would most likely be related to performing an administrative procedure or reporting on social issues in their localities. With regards to the former, there was a reasonably high level of satisfaction among the local people the research team interviewed in all five provinces, primarily because improving the efficiency of administrative processes was among the top priorities of all provincial governments. Most notably in this aspect was the government of Quang Ninh province, via the successful establishment and effective operation of the Centre of Public Administrative Services. With regards to the latter (reporting on social issues in their localities), all provinces the research team visited had dedicated channels, commonly referred to as "Situational reporting", which allowed people to report on issues in their localities. However, the actual effectiveness of these channels, as reflected by the rate of participation and reporting by local people, varied between provinces. Most successful would be the case of Hue-S, a multi-platform, multi-purpose application developed by the People’s Committee of Thua Thien Hue province, even though we did notice a disparity in the participation of residents in urban areas (e.g. in the City of Hue) and in rural areas.

Quang Ninh province successfully established and effectively operated the Centre of Public Administrative Services. 

Fourth, in-depth interviews with local households in Thua Thien Hue, Quang Ninh, and Ha Giang revealed that apart from reporting on "situational" issues directly related to their daily lives, ordinary citizens seldom engaged with the local governments in providing inputs into the policy-making process or in proposing innovative solutions to local challenges.

According to representatives from the Association of Veterans and certain government officials in Thua Thien-Hue, and the households themselves, the primary reason was the lack of trust of the people, which stemmed from the long experience that they had with the government’s failure to follow up and follow through with their complaints and recommendations. People in provinces such as Thua Thien Hue and Da Nang, via their "situational 14 reporting" channels, were striving to restore the people’s trust that the local governments listen to and act upon the people’s reports of local issues and work with the people to satisfactorily address these issues.

Fifth, in-depth interviews with the Business Association in Thua Thien Hue, Quang Ninh, Ha Giang, and Tay Ninh revealed that small and medium businesses lack a direct and effective communication channel with local governments to report on their challenges and to make recommendations to local governments on possible solutions.

Sixth, from the perspective of citizen engagement and of the CPI Initiative, local government officials can be regarded as "special citizens." Like ordinary citizens, they appreciate the social and economic challenges facing local people and the business community, especially the officials working directly with the people and businesses. At the same time, thanks to working in the government, they have a sound knowledge of the technicalities of administrative procedures, responsibilities, and the authority of various government agencies. These factors, when considered together, make them best suited to making recommendations for innovative and feasible solutions that most effectively address pressing issues confronting the people and business community.

This observation was reflected in the discussions with almost every government department in the five provinces we visited. For example, during a meeting at the People’s Committee of Phu Huu ward (Hue City, Thua Thien Hue), an official, after reporting on challenges facing the committee’s limit     ed human resources in verifying and resolving citizen reports (of local situational issues) and share his thoughts on possible solutions to address these challenges, so that the personnel at the committee’s office could satisfactorily complete the administrative tasks and address people’s situational reports in a timely manner.

Seventh, none of the provinces from UNDP and Fulbright’s field study had an effective and transparent mechanism to encourage, collect, share, and pilot innovative solutions from the people, the business community, and government agencies to tackle local challenges. The implication of the above observations was two-fold. Not only was there not sufficient consistently collected information to objectively measure a province’s readiness to CPI, but more importantly, the provinces lacked both a complete picture of local socioeconomic challenges facing the people and a pool of feasible solutions to these challenges.