The northern province of Quang Ninh has taken the lead in the Viet Nam Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index (PAPI) 2020 rankings. 

Overall core PAPI scores during 2011-2020 period 

Over the years, PAPI has provided data and evidence that reflect eight key dimensions of government performance: Participation at Local Levels, Transparency in Local Decision-making, Vertical Accountability Towards Citizens, Control of Corruption in the Public Sector, Public Administrative Procedures, Public Service Delivery, Environmental Governance and E-Governance.

Quang Ninh Province jumped two steps to take the lead in the PAPI 2020 rankings with 48.811 points and ranked first in three criteria of Transparency in Local Decision-making (6.499 points), Control of Corruption in the Public Sector (8.286 points) and Public Service Delivery (7.713 points). 

The Mekong Delta province of Dong Thap was the runner-up with 46.961 points. The locality got the highest core in Environmental Governance (5.202 points). 

The northern province of Thai Nguyen ranked third with 46.471 points and took the lead in Participation at Local Levels (6.216 points). 

The capital city of Ha Noi and Ho Chi Minh City were among 16 localities scoring least, with 41.629 points and 41.985 points, respectively.  

The PAPI is the country’s largest, annual citizen-centric, nationwide policy monitoring tool. PAPI captures citizens’ experiences and perceptions to benchmark the performance and quality of policy implementation and service delivery of all 63 provincial governments in Viet Nam, and to advocate for improvements in governance and public administration. 

Since its inception 12 years ago, PAPI has collected the views of 146,233 randomly selected citizens regarding the country’s performance in governance and public administration, based on their direct interactions with local governments.

This 2020 PAPI Report records the voices of 14,732 respondents about their experiences with local government performance in governance, public administration and public service delivery. 

The respondents were randomly selected to represent the views of Vietnamese citizens from the age of 18 and from various demographic backgrounds. Of the 2020 PAPI sample, 14,424 were permanent residents, coming from across Viet Nam’s 63 provinces, and 308 were non-permanent residents from the six provinces with the highest numbers of internal migrants (Ha Noi, Ho Chi Minh City, Dong Nai, Binh Duong, Da Nang and Bac Ninh).

The PAPI 2020 was carried out by Centre for Community Support and Development Studies (CECODES), Centre for Research and Training of the Viet Nam Fatherland Front (VFF-CRT), Real-Time Analytics, and United Nations Development Program (UNDP).