Many moons ago, the Vietnamese government invited me to guide their Finance officials on how to shift to value-added taxation. We communicated through an interpreter because they hardly spoke English. Thus, it was truly a feat that the Vietnamese students ranked 16th in Mathematics, 18th in Reading and 4th in Science in the PISA international assessment. It is sad to realize that the Filipino students landed at the bottom.
It is not only in education that the Vietnamese show outstanding performance. The handling of the pandemic by government is considered a model on strategic testing, tracing and quarantining. Their success in fighting poverty shows in the dramatic reduction of poverty incidence—from 58% in 1992 to 7.6% in 2013. Their national income grew by 7.0% in 2019 and was the only major Asian economy that posted a positive growth in the year of the pandemic—2.91% with a moderate inflation rate of 3.77%.
It is with sadness and envy that we witness the economic and human development in Vietnam. Their infrastructure system puts us to shame. I could not utter a word when a senior official approached me in a regional conference and thanked me for helping them implement the VAT. The VAT revenues provided them with a robust base. The question remains in my mind, “Why can they do it and why can’t we?”
Reading case studies about the transformation of Vietnam shows that that they had no magic formula. The only DID WHAT IS RIGHT!
The National Assembly is autonomous and does its role well. The assembly serves as a venue for analyzing policy proposals. There are many instances when bills proposed by government have been rejected or subjected to major revisions. The Assembly plays a larger role in the supervision of government activities through monitoring of citizens’ complaints and petitions.
Expenditure management is strategic. The recurrent budget funds poor provinces and richest provinces receive almost nothing. Transfers are directly related with poverty incidence, i.e. the higher the poverty rate, the bigger is the transfer. But state investments on infrastructure and capital are focused on economic hubs.
Government went strong on basic education. Minimum quality standards are defined and enforced particularly on teachers’ development. Attention is given on content knowledge, skills and dispositions.
Could efficient governance be attributed centralization of powers? Nothing is further from practice. Decentralization is practiced for better engagement with the citizens and increases the effectiveness of service delivery. Participatory budgeting and management have been decentralized to lower levels of government. As a result, Village headpersons (barangay chairmen) receive top marks as the most effective and important government actors. They are trusted to protect the interest and needs of their communities. It is said that the chairperson of a locality could be dismissed if the citizens suffer from starvation and hunger. Their fight against hunger and poverty is strongly supported by residents who have taken it upon themselves that “the better off should help the poor and the less poor should help the poorer.”
The Vietnam rose is a flower that is considered a harbinger of good fortune and blooms in difficult conditions. May we not only marvel at its beauty but eventually grow to be one.