When SARS-CoV-2 emerged in Wuhan, China, in late 2019, Vietnam’s scientists knew their country was in grave danger. Vietnam, a country of 97 million, shared an 870-mile land border with China, its biggest trade and tourism partner. Adding to the risk posed by the virus, Vietnam was a lower-middle-income nation with limited resources and an already overtaxed health-care system. But in the years after the 2003 outbreak of SARS, a deadly respiratory ailment that traumatized East Asia, Vietnam had built a robust pandemic-preparedness system that swiftly mobilized to confront the threat of SARS-CoV-2. After Vietnam recorded its first case on January 22, 2020, the prime minister declared all-out war on the virus no matter the cost to the economy. The government moved swiftly to implement border closures, extensive contact tracing, targeted lockdowns, and a strict quarantine protocol. Relentless and creative communications based on accuracy, transparency, and timeliness built public trust and compliance with public health measures. After more than three months with no community transmission, the country experienced an outbreak in Da Nang that spread across the nation and threatened to spiral out of control. But Vietnam’s authorities carried out a massive testing, tracing, and quarantine program that halted the contagion. As of December 31, 2020, Vietnam had recorded only 1,465 cases and 35 deaths—and it had posted the highest annual GDP growth of any economy in Asia.

Gordon LaForge drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in March and April 2021. Case published June 2021.This case study was supported by the United Nations Development Programme Crisis Bureau as part of a series on center-of-government coordination of the pandemic response.

The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the United Nations, including UNDP, or the UN Member States.

In January 2011, mass demonstrations in Tunisia ousted a regime that had tolerated little popular participation, opening the door to a new era of transparency. The protesters demanded an end to the secrecy that had protected elite privilege. Five months later, the president issued a decree that increased citizen access to government data and formed a steering committee to guide changes in information practices, building on small projects already in development. Advocates in the legislature and the public service joined with civil society leaders to support a strong access-to-information policy, to change the culture of public administration, and to secure the necessary financial and technical resources to publish large quantities of data online in user-friendly formats. Several government agencies launched their own open-data websites. External pressure, coupled with growing interest from civil society and legislators, helped keep transparency reforms on the cabinet office agenda despite frequent changes in top leadership. In 2016, Tunisia adopted one of the world’s strongest laws regarding access to information. Although members of the public did not put all of the resources to use immediately, the country moved much closer to having the data needed to improve access to services, enhance government performance, and support the evidence-based deliberation on which a healthy democracy depended.

Tristan Dreisbach drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in Tunis, Tunisia, in October 2016. Case published May 2017.

When Gerson Martínez became head of El Salvador’s Ministry of Public Works in 2009, the organization was notorious for corruption that contributed to poor-quality construction, unfinished projects, and frequent lawsuits. Working with a prominent nongovernmental organization (NGO) and industry representatives, Martínez introduced integrity pacts as monitoring mechanisms intended to prevent corruption. The agreements publicly committed officials and companies to reject bribery, collusion, and other corrupt practices and enabled NGOs to monitor bidding and construction. Although limited capacity and resistance from some midlevel ministry staff hindered the monitors’ work, integrity pacts focused the attention of both the government and the public on problems in major public works projects; and participants said the pacts helped deter corruption in those they covered. In 2012, integrity pacts became part of El Salvador’s Open Government Partnership action plan, in implicit recognition of the tool’s contribution to reform. As of August 2015, the ministry had signed 31 integrity pacts involving five projects worth a combined US$62 million. Although sustaining the initiative proved a challenge, integrity pacts served as a foundation for increased collaboration between government, civil society, and the private sector—and as a first step toward a new institutional culture at the Ministry of Public Works.

Maya Gainer drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in San Salvador in July 2015. Case published in October, 2015. This case study was funded by the Open Government Partnership.

Citizens of the Philippines were used to receiving poor service in government offices. Activities as basic as obtaining a driver’s license were slow and complex, and the tortuous processes created opportunities for public employees to solicit bribes for faster service. In an effort to improve service delivery, Congress passed the Anti–Red Tape Act in 2007. But, getting civil servants to comply with the act from civil servants presented a big challenge. In 2010, the Civil Service Commission began to conduct annual social audits to assess both the public’s satisfaction with frontline services and the degree to which offices adhered to the Act’s provisions. For the audits to succeed, the commission had to both persuade skeptical citizens to cooperate with the survey, and find ways to motivate civil servants to improve in response to poor ratings. Because budget constraints limited the use of financial incentives, the commission linked the results to other oversight programs and used social pressure to prod civil servants to improve the quality and efficiency of their work. During the survey’s first four years, the commission oversaw improvement in citizens’ ratings of public services but still faced challenges in raising awareness of the law and using it reshape public expectations.

Maya Gainer drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in Manila in November 2014. Case published April 2015.

Associated Interview(s): Jesse Robredo

Studi kasus ini juga, Menerapkan Aturan Dan Akuntabilitas: Standar Operasional Prosedur Di Kementerian Keuangan Republik Indonesia, 2006-2007, tersedia dalam Bahasa Indonesia.

In 2006, Indonesian economist Sri Mulyani Indrawati took on a huge and knotty problem: bringing order and efficiency to the Indonesian Ministry of Finance, an organization of 64,000 employees. At the time, many Indonesian citizens viewed the ministry as corrupt and unaccountable, exemplifying the failures of the entire government. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had appointed Mulyani because of her reputation as a tough-minded reformer and a savvy manager. Mulyani ascribed the ministry’s weak and inconsistent handling of taxes, customs and other services to a shortage of clear and consistent procedures for the many tasks employees handled. A key element of her strategy was to simplify and standardize ministry processes in order to improve employee performance and accountability. During the next two years, Mulyani and her team initially focused their efforts on 35 priority services that citizens used heavily, and then they expanded the reforms to include other activities. By 2007, the ministry had developed and implemented nearly 7,000 standard operating procedures. The changes significantly improved public services and earned popular acclaim for both the ministry and the Yudhoyono government. This case shows how a strong leader and her reform team introduced new ways of working to achieve significant gains in service efficiency, quality and fairness.

Rushda Majeed drafted this case study on the basis of interviews conducted in Jakarta, Indonesia, in November and December 2011, and on a 2009 interview of Sri Mulyani Indrawati by Matthew Devlin and Andrew Schalkwyk. Case published April 2012.

Associated Interview(s):  Sri Mulyani Indrawati, Robert Pakpahan

When Bitange Ndemo became permanent secretary of Kenya’s Ministry of Information and Communications in 2005, he was well aware of the difficulty Kenyans faced when they tried to get information from the government. He knew that easier access to government data on topics ranging from demographics to education could help spur innovation in business and technology and help drive the country’s economic growth. The Official Secrets Act under former President Daniel arap Moi had long prevented civil servants from sharing government data, and for the most part, the trend had continued since the 2002 election of President Mwai Kibaki. But in 2011, Ndemo won Kibaki’s approval to create an Internet portal that would serve as a one-stop shop for government census, economic, health and education data. With Kibaki’s support, Ndemo persuaded other ministries to allow access to the data, and he assembled a volunteer task force of computer programmers, data experts and ministry and World Bank officials to build the website and upload information. After the site—opendata.go.ke­—went online in July 2011, the ministry started taking crucial steps to ensure the system’s effectiveness by training journalists in how to use the data in their reporting, by encouraging software developers to build applications that manipulated the data to explore trends, and by working to streamline the continuing flow of information to the site from government institutions. The case highlights Ndemo’s efforts to open Kenya’s government to the country’s citizens and the world.