Hanoi (VNA) – Despite animprovement in the online disclosure of district-level land use plans andprovincial-level land pricing frameworks, the difference between the reviews in2021 and 2022 was not significant, according to recent research findings.

Thefindings were shared at a thematic discussion jointly organised by the UnitedNations Development Program (UNDP) in Vietnam and the Centre for EducationPromotion and  Empowerment of Women (CEPEW) in Hanoi on March 9.

Accordingly,there was an increase in the number of district-level land use plans andprovincial-level land pricing frameworks available online on local governmentportals in 2022 compared to 2021. At the same time, local authorities havebecome more responsive to citizen requests for land information.

However,despite these changes, the difference between the two reviews was notsignificant, indicating that more needs to be done by provincial and districtauthorities to meet the mandate of disclosing information online.

Regardingthe disclosure of the provincial land pricing frameworks, as of October 6 last year 41 out of the 63 provinces and centrally-run cities (65%) publicly posted theland pricing frameworks on their websites, an increase of 22.2% compared to thereview findings in 2021. However, information in some of these portals isstored in the form of compressed documents and archived non-systematically,leading to difficulties for users who want to search for land pricing frameworks.

Regardingthe disclosure of district-level land use plans, as of October 6 last year, 389 outof the 705 the district-level People's Committees (DPCs) (55.2%) disclosed this information last year on their portals. Among these 389 districts, 19DPCs (4.9%) that publicised the district-level land use plans in 2022 issuedthe land use plans on time. Compared that with the review findings in 2021, thenumber of DPCs that publicised land use plans on their portals/websitesincreased slightly, about 7%.

Interms of the disclosure of district-level land use master plan information - a new content assessed in 2022, by October 6 last year, 345 out of the 705 district-levellocalities nationwide (nearly 49%) publicised this information for the period of 2021-2030. Specifically, among these 345 DPCs, 105 wererecorded to have disclosed such information on time; 116 did not disclose ontime; and 124 were unidentifiable in terms of the disclosure time.

With regardto completeness, 171 out of the 345 DPCs (49.6%) fully disclosed threedocuments: approval decision, explanatory report and map of land use masterplan.

Accordingto the review findings, only 53 DPCs (0.75%) met all the five criteria: informationdisclosure, searchability, timeliness, completeness, and usability.

Thisstudy is part of an annual series of action research on land informationdisclosure in Vietnam by local authorities from 2021 to now. The AustralianDepartment of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Embassy of Ireland, and the UNDPjointly funded this study through the Vietnam Provincial Governance and PublicAdministration Performance Index (PAPI) Research Programme of UNDP.

Thelevel of land information disclosure of the provincial and district authoritiesis evaluated based on five criteria: information disclosure; searchability; timelinessof information; completeness of information (for district-level land use masterplan and annual district-level land use plans); and information usability (easyto read, understand and readable with common softwares)./.