Nghe An: Finding solutions to improve the efficiency of public administration and governance

On the morning of April 19, the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics coordinated with the People's Committee of Nghe An province to organize a workshop on improving the Provincial Governance and Public Administration Index (PAPI) in Nghe An. Attending the workshop were Associate Professor, Dr. Le Quoc Ly - Deputy Director of the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics; Le Ngoc Hoa - Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee; leaders of provincial departments, branches, and sectors, districts, cities, and towns in the province. Photo: Thanh Le

Speaking at the workshop, Deputy Director of the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics Le Quoc Ly emphasized that in 2018, Nghe An's PAPI Index made a leap forward, reaching 4th place nationwide.

However, there are still some contents of Nghe An with low rankings. The gap between Nghe An's achieved score and the ceiling score is still very far. Some component indicators are low. That shows that Nghe An's improvement in recent years is not uniform and not sustainable.

In addition, since 2018, two new content axes have been included in the assessment, "Environmental Governance" and "E-Governance", both of which are related to urgent issues of environmental protection and building e-government towards digital government in the coming period.

Therefore, improving the contents of activities related to the two major issues mentioned above requires timely and continuous updating and supplementing of knowledge. Governments at all levels need to make more efforts to meet the requirements and improve people's satisfaction.

Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Le Ngoc Hoa spoke at the workshop. Photo: Thanh Le

“The workshop is an opportunity for us to summarize and re-evaluate the results of governance and public administration, especially the implementation of the Administrative Reform Program and the Ordinance on Democracy at the grassroots level in communes/wards/towns of Nghe An province in recent years.

From there, it will actively contribute to improving the effectiveness of governance and public administration of the province, increasing the satisfaction of Nghe An people with the operation of the public apparatus" - Deputy Director of the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics affirmed.

Ms. Do Thanh Huyen - Senior Expert of the United Nations Development Program in Vietnam gave a speech on some general trends and the effectiveness of governance and public administration. Photo: Thanh Le

At the workshop, delegates focused on assessing and fully analyzing Nghe An's 2018 PAPI index, clarifying the content axes with high scores, the content axes with weak implementation, low scores; the low-scoring component indexes that need to be improved, and at the same time fully assessing the causes of the shortcomings and limitations leading to low scores.

At the same time, delegates shared lessons learned on improving the PAPI Index of localities; some general trends in Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance in 2018; on controlling corruption in the public sector, etc.

Improve the efficiency of public administration and management

In his concluding remarks at the workshop, Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Le Ngoc Hoa affirmed: In recent years, Nghe An has made many efforts in administrative reform, focusing on innovating management methods, improving the effectiveness of state management and improving the quality of public service provision to the people.

In 2018, the public administration and governance performance index of Nghe An province improved and made a remarkable leap in ranking compared to 2017 (up 40 places) and was ranked highest among the provinces in the North Central region.

Provincial Inspector General Vi Van Suu speaks about controlling corruption in the public sector. Photo: Thanh Le

“However, the overall score is still low compared to the maximum score of the criteria (46.57/80 points); some content axes of PAPI, although higher than other localities and in the group of leading provinces, have low scores such as the content on E-Governance; Environmental Governance is ranked in the group with high average scores, showing that the administrative reform work of the province still has many limitations, has not met the requirements and the province still has a lot to do to improve the effectiveness of governance and public administration” - Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee said.

From the results of the discussions, sharing and comments of the delegates, Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Le Ngoc Hoa requested that after this workshop, departments, branches and localities in the province focus on doing a good job of advising on administrative reform in the province; regularly review, evaluate and analyze the related contents of PAPI that have been announced to advise on timely implementation of solutions to improve and enhance the index.

Departments and branches review assigned tasks to preside over administrative reform work, tasks under the management of the branch directly related to the content axes of PAPI to focus on advising, guiding, directing and implementing effectively.

Officials of Tao Son commune (Anh Son) receive citizens. Illustration photo: Thanh Le

“The success of the workshop will help Nghe An province have specific directions, steps and actions to improve the governance and public administration efficiency index in the coming time; improve Nghe An's position compared to other provinces and more importantly, from the implementation of specific and practical solutions, administrative agencies at all levels of the province will operate effectively and efficiently, contributing to the development of the province” - Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Le Ngoc Hoa emphasized.