Resource information
This report presents the results of a
novel study on land transparency in Vietnam; a study that
focuses on the actual provision of information related to
land. This study was produced as part of the Vietnam
Transparency Project, an effort to systematically measure
transparency, provide actionable advice on how to improve
transparency, and analyze the causes and effects of
transparency in Vietnam. If a country's political,
economic, and social system was a human body, access to
information would be the nervous system. Just as the nervous
system tells the brain where we are, where we are going,
whether we are tired or injured or hungry or thirsty, flows
of information help ensure that decisions are made
efficiently and that resources are used productively and
fairly. Information helps ensure that the organizations that
make up the body politic are performing as instructed, that
decisions reflect the pains and pleasures of the people whom
the state serves. Coupling with economic strides, Vietnam
has made impressive progress in opening up flows of
information over recent decades. Internet penetration has
grown rapidly, and citizens have more access to global and
national news than ever before. Transparency of decision
making by the state has also expanded. From the publishing
of budgets and fiscal information, to draft laws, to
televised sessions of the National Assembly, there is no
doubt that Vietnam is a more transparent place than in
decades past. The same holds true for land management, with
successive legal changes gradually expanding the scope of
information that is declared to be public information. At
the same time, citizens and firms continue to report having
difficulty finding the information they need, and problems
such as corruption and the misuse and waste of resources
continue to constrain Vietnam s progress. In the area of
land management, surveys of the perceptions of citizens and
firms point to limited implementation of the land
transparency rules that do exist. Many experts have
highlighted the need for Vietnam to greatly expand
transparency in the next phase of modernizing its institutions.
