How Vietnam’s ‘streamlining revolution’ may lead to uneven success
Third plenums are ordinarily the quiet part of Vietnam’s political calendar. Between its five-yearly congresses, the Communist Party of Vietnam governs through numbered plenums of its Central Committee (CC): the first two settle personnel decisions, and the third, six months on, usually does no more than ratify the term’s work programme. This time, the third plenum of the 14th CC, held from July…
Vietnam's "streamlining revolution" aims to strengthen the country's governance, but the process may lead to uneven success. The Communist Party of Vietnam recently held its most significant administrative overhaul in decades, shifting from reducing the size of the state bureaucracy to building the capacity to govern. The first phase of this "streamlining revolution" focused on restructuring, resulting in the reduction of local government levels and the elimination of nearly 210,000 civil servants.
However, the second phase of the reform, which involves communes taking on tasks previously handled by the abolished district tier, has proven challenging. With only a third of the former district staff moving to the commune level, many communes are now responsible for more than 1,000 tasks without the necessary specialists. The average commune now has more than twice as many staff as before but three times as many residents, exacerbating the strain on resources.
Service delivery has been impacted, with only 30% of commune staff fully meeting the requirements of their new duties. A nationwide survey revealed that only 71.1% of land-certificate applicants received results on time, and 12% resorted to informal intermediaries. These figures indicate functional overload and uneven competence at the tier of government responsible for implementing the new system.
The Central Committee has recognized the problem and is seeking to shift the reform's emphasis from organizational streamlining to operating quality. The new framework assigns devolved responsibilities to provinces, which will coordinate with communes for implementation. However, the success of this reform is likely to be partial and uneven due to sequencing issues and the time needed to create specialist capacity.
Communes have been tasked with expanded responsibilities for a year, while the legal, staffing, and digital reforms will take until 2027 to be fully implemented. Re-training commune staff and acquiring the necessary experience and expertise will not be completed until 2031. Therefore, the burden of transition currently falls on communes, which must manage their new responsibilities before the tools needed to do so are in place.
Written by urgent.news from South China Morning Post's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
