Disclosure of land information by local authorities significantly improves

This is a key finding of the 2023 review conducted by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Viet Nam, Real-Time Analytics (RTA) and the Center for Education Promotion and Empowerment of Women (CEPEW), which was released in Ha Noi on March 12.

The review is part of a series of annual, evidence-based studies on the disclosure of land information by local authorities in Viet Nam from 2021 to the present.

It seeks to measure adherence to Viet Nam's laws on land and access to information, which specify responsibilities, processes, forms, and deadlines for disclosing information on provincial land pricing frameworks, district-level land use master plans and annual plans, as well as an obligation to provide these types of information at the request of citizens.

The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and the Embassy of Ireland jointly funded this study through UNDP in Viet Nam's Provincial Public Administration and Governance Performance Index (PAPI) research program.

The transparent disclosure of land information is crucial in mitigating the risks of land-related complaints and conflicts," said UNDP Resident Representative Ramla Khalidi.

"We trust that our annual review, now in its third year, provides local government leaders with a tool to track their performance in implementing laws regarding land information disclosure to the public. This becomes particularly important as we approach the enforcement of the 2024 Land Law from January next year", she noted.

Accordingly, the transparency of land use plans and land pricing frameworks on the web portals of provincial and district governments has shown significant improvement following three rounds of review.

Regarding the disclosure of provincial land pricing frameworks, as of October 6, 2023, 73 percent of provinces and municipalities have disclosed land pricing frameworks on their web portals, an increase of 8.1 percent compared to the results of the 2022 review and a 31.1 percent increase compared to the results of the 2021 review.

Regarding the disclosure of district-level land use master plans, by October 6, 2023, out of a total of 705 district units nationwide, 65.4 percent have disclosed district-level land use master plans for the period 2021-2030, an increase of 16.5 percent compared to 2022.

In terms of completeness, among the district-level People's Committees that have disclosed information, 54.2 percent have fully posted the 03 required documents, including approval decisions, general explanatory reports, and maps of land use plans.

Regarding the disclosure of district-level annual land use plans, as of October 6, 2023, out of 705 district-level People's Committees, 65.2 percent have disclosed the 2023 land use plans on their web portals, an increase of 17.3 percent compared to 2021 and an increase of 10 percent compared to 2022.

To promote the disclosure of land information by state agencies, the Research Group continues to recommend relevant agencies at provincial and district levels to fully implement the disclosure of land information both online on the agencies' web portals and at their headquarters.

The third review was conducted from October 2023 to February 2024, involving an examination of the official web portal of 63 provinces/municipalities and 705 districts nationwide.

The evaluation of land information disclosure by provincial and district governments is based on five criteria, namely Information disclosure, the ability to search for information, the timeliness of the information, the completeness of the information (for district-level land-use master plans and annual plans), and information./.