Viet Nam
About Viet Nam
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The current process of drafting and discussing a draft "Access to Information Law" in Vietnam can be seen as a positive indication of the goodwill and determination of the Vietnamese government to improve transparency and reduce the "culture of secrecy" in the public sector. At least it can be seen in line with the current efforts to reduce corruption (Anti-Corruption Strategy towards 2020), the need to modernize and improve the public administration system (Public Administration Reform Master Plan 2001 - 2020), and international commitments (including for example the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 19 and the recently ratified UN Convention against Corruption, article 10 on public reporting).
The very well-know Vietnamese phrase of "People know, people discuss, people do, and people verify" (dan biet, dan ban, dan lam, dan kiem tra) summarizes the importance of access to information in modern societies as it is only with information that people can fulfill these key four development tasks. In that regard, access to information is becoming increasingly and widely recognized in international law, and a large number of countries have recently issued this type of national lesgislation. For example, in 1990 only 13 countries had access to information laws, yet in 2007 more than 70 countries have.
