The government plans to merge ministries and reduce redundancy to become more ‘lean’ and ‘robust’.
In mid-March, the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party’s (LPRP) central committee issued a resolution on the need to restructure the government. This followed an extraordinary session of the committee in late February to discuss how to make the 47 party and state bodies “lean, streamlined, efficient, and robust”. The aim: to reduce “bureaucratic layers, inefficiencies, and dependencies previously caused by excessive fragmentation” and more clearly assign specific responsibilities to a “single ministry, agency or department”. The goal is admirable, but…