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Besides its beautiful beach, central Da Nang city can also boast streets with few beggars and a party leader who reads youths' e-mails daily as part of its initiatives to develop into a world-class city.
Besides its beautiful beach, central Da Nang city can also boast streets with few beggars and a party leader who reads youths' e-mails daily as part of its initiatives to develop into a world-class city.
Tourists have actually credited Da Nang as a “light, green, clean and nice” city.
However, the city has undergone major makeovers and operations that have required great efforts from authorities and contributions from the city dwellers for the last eight years.
And most of the city’s development projects have won vast public supports thanks to the authorities’ application of democratic principles in management.
“Five-nos” city
Da Nang has set itself an ambitious target of ridding the city of five chronic urban headaches: underfed households, illiterate people, beggars, robbers and murderers, and drug users.
The plan to reach the target began when Mayor at the time Nguyen Ba Thanh held an unprecedented meeting with local criminals in late 2001.
The meeting helped criminals gain trust from the city leaders and realize they could mend their ways.
After the meeting, the city also granted loans to help the criminals improve their lives.
The city has also poured in preferential loans to support poverty-stricken families and encouraged people to apply civilized practices in their daily life.
Professional behaviours
Another “five-nos” principle has also been applied among local officials and civil servants to prevent bribe-taking, corruption, imperiousness, irresponsibility, and waste of time and money.
The city has also carried out drastic reforms to its structures to shorten the time for residents going through administrative procedures.
Officials and civil servants are requested to be more professional or face being fired when dealing with civilians.
At times, high-ranking officials are even asked to offer apologies for their inferiors’ faults.
Digital initiatives
While e-mails are still something exotic to many middle-aged Vietnamese, the Party leader of Da Nang has asked young civil servants to send their initiatives straight to his e-mail inbox.
Many of their proposals have been put into practice and bear fruit for the last two years, particularly the city’s outstanding youth talent policy.
Starting in 2004, Da Nang decided to sponsor 63 excellent students of the city to study at home or abroad in exchange for their commitment to work in the city for at least seven years after graduation.
Generous awards have also been created for students who win national academic contests.
This is just one of many original “Da Nang-brand” development policies being studied and applied in other localities nationwide
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