Even though Vietnam’s economy continues to grow, the challenges of growing beyond lower-middle-income status remain persistent. To address this, the country will need a paradigm shift in the structure of its economy and in the functioning of its supporting regulatory environment. This includes transitioning to higher value-added activities within global value chains and upgrading labor skills, technology infrastructure, production models, management systems, and the availability and efficacy of private sector support services. As Vietnam continues to make strides in its efforts to decentralize and devolve greater levels of management authority and service provision responsibilities to lower levels of government, provincial authorities will play a central role in facilitating this shift. To help achieve this, the USAID Strengthening Provincial Capacity project will strengthen the capacity and build the sustainability of local institutions’ provincial capacity building extension services so they can provide high quality, relevant interventions addressing capacity gaps, enabling provincial officials to implement and measure economic governance reforms more effectively

INSTITUTIONAL CAPACITY STRENGTHENING

USAID Strengthening Provincial Capacity works with three existing Vietnamese institutions that provide leadership and capacity building training to provincial-level leaders, namely the National Academy of Public Administration, a government institution; the School of Government at the University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City, an academic institution; and the Startup Vietnam Foundation, a non-profit institution.  Through this project, USAID will strengthen the capacity and build the sustainability of the three institutions and foster a culture of continuous learning where provincial officials are proactively upgrading skills and collaborating with the private sector to create a robust environment for strong economic growth.

CREATING IMPACT FOR PROVINCIAL ECONOMIC GOVERNANCE

Through USAID’s capacity building efforts, the three Vietnamese institutions will become competitive in the marketplace and provinces will seek out these institutions to train their leaders. As a result, local officials will be able to implement economic governance reforms more effectively, interact with citizens and private sector to improve transparency and accountability, and have the skills to measure and sustain the success of their efforts.

EXPECTED RESULTS

USAID Strengthening Provincial Capacity aims to achieve the following results: 1) Improve local institutions’ understanding of and responsiveness to local economic governance capacity needs; 2) Improve local institutions’ ability to design and deliver high-quality capacity development opportunities; and 3) Improve local institutions’ ability to generate demand and establish revenue streams for capacity development opportunities.