Among the nearly 7,000 government-mandated administrative procedures in Vietnam, only 20% are processed at the local level, with the majority under central agency purview. This means that SMEs have to spend time and money traveling to major cities for the completion of administrative procedures, at times by public officials lacking full appreciation of the local impacts of their decisions. In response, the Prime Minister has urged the devolution of authority in the handling of administrative procedures from central ministries to local authorities. The USAID Linkages for Small and Medium Enterprises project (LinkSME) is supporting these efforts. On June 14 and 21, USAID LinkSME, in collaboration with the Administrative Procedure Control Agency (APCA), organized two workshops that each provided an opportunity for central government authorities to share their experiences, lessons learned, and recommendations with local authorities and representatives of the private sector.
The inputs from the two workshops will contribute to APCA’s consolidated decentralization recommendations to the Prime Minister, thereby strengthening stakeholder involvement to catalyze a decision on this initiative.