Measuring Citizen Experiences: Conducting a Social Audit in Vietnam, 2009–2013
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MEASURING CITIZEN EXPERIENCES: CONDUCTING A SOCIAL AUDIT IN VIETNAM, 2009–2013 SYNOPSIS In late 2009, following three decades of gradual economic and governance reform by Vietnam’s one-party government, three organizations came together to implement a social audit across the country. The Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index (PAPI)—a joint policy project of the United Nations Development Programme, the Vietnamese nongovernmental organization the Center for Community Support and Development Studies, and the Communist Party–affiliated Vietnam Fatherland Front—aimed to draw information about citizen perspectives into decision making in Vietnam. It also sought to formulate quantitative measures of provincial performance and governance. Based on public surveys, PAPI aimed to provide a reliable picture of citizen experiences with provincial government along six dimensions: participation in government at local levels, transparency, vertical accountability, control of corruption, implementation of and adherence to public administrative procedures, and public service delivery. By 2011, PAPI was able to measure governance quality in all 63 provinces in Vietnam. The survey project represented the nation’s first large-scale effort to systematically gather information about citizens’ experiences with their local and provincial governments. It also led some provincial governments to create action plans that would improve the services citizens received and boost the rankings of those provincial governments in the index. Rachel Jackson drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in Hanoi in July 2014. Case published December 2014. INTRODUCTION growing economies.1 Gross domestic product, By the beginning of 2009, Vietnam’s which had grown 2.79% in 1986 (the year the government had spent more than two decades economic reforms began), averaged 6.88% growth implementing economic and public from 1987 to 2008. During the same period, administration reforms that aimed to transition GDP per capita grew from $437 in 1986 to the country to a middle-income, more efficient, $1,165 in 2008, measured in current US dollars.2 and more responsive state without threatening its The outcomes of other reforms, which aimed one-party structure. The move from a centrally to improve public administration performance and planned economy to a market-based one had increase citizen participation in government at the helped transform Vietnam from one of the local level, were less easily quantifiable. In 2009, poorest countries in the world to one of its fastest- to fill that gap, a team from the United Nations ISS is a joint program of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the Bobst Center for Peace and Justice. Terms of use and citation format appear at the end of this document and at http://successfulsocieties.princeton.edu/about/terms-conditions. ISS invites readers to share feedback and information on how these cases are being used: [email protected]. © 2014, Trustees of Princeton University Rachel Jackson Innovations for Successful Societies Development Programme (UNDP), a Vietnamese anticorruption. “There was a social audit here and nongovernmental organization (NGO) called the a social audit there, in this province or in that Center for Community Support and province, but there was not a concerted effort to Development Studies (CECODES), and the try to understand how all 63 provinces were Department of Law and Democracy within the performing in public administration.” Vietnam Fatherland Front (VFF) began work on Building on that project, the prime minister a social audit to measure ordinary citizens’ in 2007 approved Project 30, an attempt to experiences with provincial and local simplify administrative procedures across the governments. The VFF, officially affiliated with country. The project, a collaboration with the Communist Party, was enshrined in Vietnam’s USAID, included public consultation via the constitution as the organization responsible for project’s Web site, asking citizens to provide their articulating citizen perspectives to the Vietnamese opinions on the necessity and reasonability of government and for overseeing the government on certain procedures.3 behalf of citizens. The project aimed to survey The 2009 social audit that CECODES, the citizens across the country on whether they had VFF, and the UNDP launched sought to measure received promised government services and on the outcomes of the first phase of Vietnam’s Public nature of their interactions with local and Administration Reform (PAR) program. The provincial levels of government. Ministry of Home Affairs had launched the The UNDP, CECODES, and VFF team’s package of ambitious civil service reforms in initiative was not Vietnam’s first social audit. In 1998,4 and in 2008, the UNDP’s policy and 2005, the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and governance team worked with CECODES and Industry and the US Agency for International the VFF to publish an analysis of the PAR Development (USAID) had collaborated to survey program and recommendations for its second businesses throughout the country on their phase.5 (From 2009 to 2012, the UNDP funded interactions with provincial and local further evaluation of the PAR program’s first governments. The resulting data, called the phase and aspects of planning for the second Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI), enabled phase.) researchers to rank the provinces in terms of ease While working on the public administration of doing business. The project pioneered in reform analysis, the policy and governance team at Vietnam the ideas of publicly ranking provincial the UNDP’s Vietnam country office in Hanoi governments based on survey data and of discussed with CECODES and the VFF the idea measuring government performance based on the of a social audit. “From the beginning of that experiences of those who received government research, one thing that came out very strongly services rather than on the experiences of those was the lack of a monitoring and evaluation who provided the services. In the years after the system—not only for the overall Public index was established, several provinces worked to Administration Reform master plan but also for improve their scores and thereby encourage overall governance dynamics in Vietnam,” said national and foreign investment. There also were Acuña-Alfaro, who joined the UNDP in Vietnam some efforts at the municipal level to measure in 2007. The government had recognized the citizen perspectives on local government. need for a monitoring system for the PAR “We noted that Vietnam had an explosion of program but “had failed to set it in motion,” he social audits,” said Jairo Acuña-Alfaro, UNDP said. policy adviser on public administration and The proposed social audit would also 2 ISS invites readers to share feedback and information on how these case studies are being used: [email protected]. © 2014, Trustees of Princeton University Rachel Jackson Innovations for Successful Societies measure the degree of transparency and citizen views or opinions. involvement in local government. In 1998, the “We inherited the legacy of a centrally Communist Party Politburo had issued the planned economy, which means a lot of things are Grassroots Democracy directive, which affirmed still decided at the center—or at least at the the rights of citizens to know about the activities provincial level,” said Bui Phuong Dinh, director of their local governments, to be consulted on of the Vietnam Institute of Leadership and Public such issues as land-use planning, and to monitor Policy at Ho Chi Minh National Academy of local government activities. A response to public Politics and Public Administration, which trained disaffection with the arbitrary imposition of taxes the country’s midlevel and high-level public and the embezzlement of public resources by local officials. officials, 6 the decree exactly instructed local There was no significant attempt at the governments in the specific ways they were national level to assess public opinion or expected to interact with the population.7 The systematically involve citizens in the policy- subsequent 2007 Grassroots Democracy ordinance making process. Most government agencies, from redefined Vietnam’s version of democracy as “the the central Ministry of Home Affairs to provincial people know, people discuss, people do, people and local agencies, used self-assessment reports check.” Competitive, multiparty elections were and internally generated statistics to evaluate not part of that definition. performance at all levels. “No citizens’ voices were heard during the THE CHALLENGE process, which was a problem, given that the The UNDP team agreed to help host and government was emphasizing the role of citizens coordinate the audit in conjunction with in policy implementation and policy monitoring,” CECODES and the VFF. The UNDP’s Acuña- said UNDP policy analyst Huyen. That lack of Alfaro and policy analyst Do Thanh Huyen knew, consultation not only ran contrary to the however, that implementing a social audit across government’s stated agenda of citizen inclusion provincial governments in Vietnam posed but also thwarted effective policy evaluation. significant political, technical, and logistical “There was a serious lack of evidence to show how challenges. average citizens received or experienced the things The Grassroots Democracy ordinance that the state apparatus should provide for implicitly acknowledged a need to gather citizen