A Marvelous Mouse Click
GIS brings transparency to land administration in Da Lat
Le Van Hoang sighed with relief. Finally, after an arduous journey seeking justice, he could build a house on his land. After leaving the army in early 1990, Hoanh inherited a small plot of land on Tu Duc Road in Ward 11 of Da Lat City. Later, in early 1999, Hoanh decided to build a house on this land where his mother had lived for a long time prior to the unification of south and north Vietnam. He thought the procedures to obtain permission of construction might be simple.

A new road “of the people, by the people, for the people”
PAR strengthens grassroots democracy
Mr. Nguyen Chi Thanh’s house sits right next to a new road in An Huu Huu commune, Hoai An District, Binh Dinh Province. This newly constructed road is wide and made of solid concrete allowing lorry drivers to go directly to farmers’ houses to buy paddy during the harvest season, saving transportation costs.

Hands of gold
Reforms facilitate small businesses in Mekong Delta
Ben Tre Province at the end of the Mekong Delta river, bordering the South China Sea, has 65 kilometers of coast and a thick system of canals in the interior field. Ben Tre is considered to be the homeland of coconut treesl, but it is the first or second poorest in the Mekong Delta because of low incomes from rice and coconut farming.. In the last five years, Ben Tre province has mobilized a huge amount of capital to loan people to invest in new industries in order to exploit effectively land and sea potentialty and thereby eliminate hunger, reduce poverty, and raise people’s living standards. From 2001 up to now, thanks to this poverty-alleviation capital, in Ben Tre the aquaculture including raising tiger prawn, blue-clawed crayfish, mussel, tra fish, crocodile, and freshwater fish), handicraft production, growing rubber intermingling coconut gardens have developed very quickly and created good incomes.

A change in the culture
Civil servants act in new unusual ways!
In the past, before PAR, the cadres and civil servants in Vinh Long province were bossy, harassing, and keen on authority and created difficulties for enterprises and people when handling administrative procedures. Business registration procedures were cumbersome and only being reformed slowly. Many businesses/enterprises and people had to return many times to relevant administrative agencies to complete documents which cost them a lot of time, effort and money (for gifts for staff). Procedures for new business registration, for example took over half a month, while procedures for changing the business operation also took at least up to 5 to 8 days. Recently, however, administrative procedures reform has created a lot of change in cadres’ actions and mindsets. Citizens in Vinh Long say cadres are more and more responsible and more friendly than before.

Reforms benefit poor migrants
Removing administrative barriers for people lacking a residence book
Administrative barriers looked like they would prevent seven-year-old Huynh Ngoc Dan Hanh from going to school. Because she lacked a birth certificate, she would not be accepted into public education, even though her father had tried for Hanh’s entire life to obtain a birth certificate for her.

ISO sets a high bar in Dalat City
Pople’s committee official earns the trust of his fellow citizens by introducing ISO quality standards to improve the speed and efficiency of Dalat city’s administrative agencies
Not long ago Vice Chairman of Dalat City’s People’s Committee Mr. Le Chinh was criticized for not fulfilling his duty in managing the city’s administrative agencies. However, since his decision to apply the ISO (International Standards Organization) model to the agencies, the People have given him their full support due to improvements in administrative efficiency.

A little public administration reform goes a long way
Without a computer network, a justice official finds he shuffles papers all day long without finding what he is looking for
The age of technology has not yet reached Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Thong’s cramped office, which is overflowing with books containing public records. Everyday as he rummages through piles of papers, Mr Thong, who works as a senior judicial official, wishes he had access to a computer that would make his job of finding, comparing and certifying copies of birth certificates and other documents easier and faster.

Hot line reduces administrative heat
How a Vung Tau hot line raised the voice of one disabled woman over the bureaucratic din
Le Thi Thach Ha was limping when she opened the gate to her parents’ plot of land, but the disabled woman was finally happy that she had cut through all the red tape and now officially owned the land her father had left to her earlier this year. For Ha, this was the end of a long fight to gain possession of her 81-year-old father’s 2,740 m2 of agricultural land in Vung Tau City, which he had owned since 1978.

Quang Nam Province gives red tape the boot
Administrative reforms prove to be a step in the right direction for pulling in a German footwear manufacturer
Major improvements to public administration was the main reason why a German leather shoe manufacturer established a foothold in Quang Nam Province, creating jobs for thousands of people on the factory floor, at home and in local associated businesses.

Trang Bom upgrades its image
Trang Bom’s local government sees PAR as a way to wash away the poverty left after the American War ended three decades ago
Breakthroughs in public administration reform have smoothed the way for residents of Trang Bom district, 50 km from HCM City, to open their own business ventures, making an area hard-hit by the American War economically self sufficient.