Enhancing interaction between government and people in digital environment

In fact, 100% of localities have built and operated provincial-level e-government portals; however, only 50/63 localities have deployed smart applications to serve the provision of information and focal points for reflecting and making recommendations to people. In addition, the effectiveness of these communication channels for the interaction between the government and the people is still limited. For example, up to 27/63 localities do not have a section dedicated to citizens on the e-government portal, which partly affects the accessibility of people when searching for information directly related to themselves. Regarding smart applications, there are cases where applications of some localities have stopped updating information but are still displayed in the search results list of application stores. Some applications are even in testing or have system errors, making it impossible for people to use. The above ineffective interaction can lead to waste of resources and information provided to people is scattered and fragmented. Furthermore, when people need to install smart applications, confusion can easily occur and the desired results are not achieved.

Nghe An province's electronic information portal. Illustrative photo.

In the case of Nghe An, although the locality has not yet deployed a smart application to provide information, receive and respond to people's feedback and suggestions, in the past month, the locality has started deploying an application for businesses. This can be considered one of the locality's efforts in the process of digital transformation of the public sector, bringing the local government closer and faster to businesses. Regarding the e-portal, according to the initial assessment of the Institute for Policy Research and Media Development (IPS), the locality's advantage is that it has posted relatively complete information that needs to be made public to the people on the provincial e-portal, as well as the level of interaction on this interactive channel is relatively complete and timely. In particular, the locality has designed a "People" section to help improve the efficiency and experience of people when accessing the local e-portal.

However, there are still some limitations that the locality can improve in the coming time. Specifically, according to the IPS Institute's assessment, the locality has not yet publicized a number of regulations such as regulations on providing information to people, regulations on receiving citizens, designating and publicizing the focal point in charge of receiving local information requests on the electronic information portal. In addition, according to the PAPI 2021 assessment index conducted by the United Nations Development Program in Vietnam, Nghe An's assessment score on the e-governance criterion is still low, reaching 0.51/3.33 points. In particular, the assessment criteria on the level of use of the electronic information portal to serve the needs of the people are still limited. Thus, the locality needs to continue to encourage people to increase the use of communication tools to improve the interaction between the government and the people in the digital environment so that the digital transformation process in the locality brings positive results.

To solve this problem, in the short term, localities should continue to promote existing strengths and continue to standardize the electronic information portal to best meet the needs of the people. In addition, training activities for cadres, civil servants, and public employees, as well as propaganda and dissemination of the use of interactive tools to the people still need to be carried out so that each person gradually forms the habit of using official interactive tools. In addition, localities can consider building local applications to directly serve the people with the purpose of publicizing information, receiving and responding to people's feedback and suggestions.

Hue-S application of Thua Thien Hue province.

A typical example of a locality that has built and deployed smart applications and brought positive results is Thua Thien Hue province with the Hue-S application. This application has been officially operating since 2019, nearly a year before the COVID-19 outbreak. Therefore, when the pandemic broke out, the locality integrated 17 epidemic prevention and control functions such as online medical declaration, notification, warning of infected cases, residence registration, personal schedule tracking, etc. Up to now, the application is still used regularly by people to update news about local policies, directly send feedback and recommendations to competent authorities; especially with the function of monitoring cameras online in key areas of the city./.