The 5th Japan Training Program in Japan

A total of 17 young leaders at the level of director general, deputy director general and director from 12 provinces and 3 centrally administered cities in Vietnam participated in a 28-day training in Japan from 4 to 31 August.

As in previous trainings, the program consisted of "Understanding Japan", lectures, site visits and report presentations and discussions.

In the "Understanding Japan" component, participants learned about Japan's history, culture, geography, climate, society, people's lives and the Japanese way of thinking. The lectures covered basic knowledge of politics, administration, local government and systems, as well as policy areas implemented by local government. During the site visits, the participants visited a total of 10 local public entities of different levels in the Kanto region and Nagano Prefecture, including "designated cities", "core cities", "former special cities", "special wards" and ordinary municipalities of cities, towns and villages. They deepened their understanding further about Japanese local government and local government administration through exchanges with mayors, local government executives and officials. This experience was a good opportunity for Vietnamese local leaders to reaffirm their own leadership roles.

In a survey conducted at the end of the training, 87.5% of the participants selected 'environment, landscape and waste' and 75% selected 'administrative reform and decentralization' as areas they would like to incorporate into their work when they return home. These results suggest that many participants achieved one of the main objectives of the training course: "To acquire knowledge and formulate ideas on necessary actions to solve challenges through participation in training to promote public administration reform and urban planning and management".

The survey responses also revealed a wide range of findings, such as "the need to minimize the impact on natural terrain and trees when designing and implementing local development plans", "the importance of effective waste sorting, collection and treatment", and ideas for private sector involvement in public projects, such as the involvement of private investors in small-scale urban development and public-private cooperation in the use and management of public spaces.