Australia’s Department for Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and the UN Development Program (UNDP) have signed a funding agreement for Australia to make an additional contribution of AUD9.7 million (US$6.77 million) over four years (2021-2025) to the ongoing program “Vietnam Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index” (PAPI), implemented through UNDP.

Australian Ambassador to Vietnam Robyn Mudie (left) and UNDP Resident Representative in Vietnam Caitlin Wiesen (right). Photo: UNDP

On this occasion, Australian Ambassador to Vietnam Robyn Mudie reiterated Australia’s strong support to Vietnam to promote better governance and public administration at the provincial level, especially in response to Covid-19.

“We are very impressed that PAPI has evolved as Vietnam has changed over the years. PAPI now includes e-government and environment indicators, showing that it is responding to the situation in the country,” Ambassador Mudie said.  

UNDP Resident Representative in Vietnam Caitlin Wiesen said: “The funding comes at a critical time for Vietnam as the country gears up for recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic. UNDP will work with our national partners to support provinces in improving governance and promote more accountable and responsive institutions in Vietnam”.

PAPI is a policy monitoring tool that reflects citizen experiences with central to local governments in performing their governance, public administration and public service delivery functions.

Since its debut in 2009, PAPI has collected feedback from 131,501 citizens (with 52% being women and 16% being ethnic minorities) who were randomly selected from across the country for face-to-face interviews. Every year since 2011, around 14,000 citizens from different demographic backgrounds have provided their feedback about their local governance performance.

Australia has been the main donor for PAPI since 2018. Thanks to this support, PAPI has continued to make substantial impact at various levels. All 63 provinces and cities across Vietnam have organized PAPI diagnostic workshops to track how their local government agencies have been doing on governance and public administration. Nearly all provinces have issued resolutions, action plans or directives to directly respond to PAPI findings.