Traditionally focused on Millennium Development Goals or Sustainable Development Goals, aid in general, and French aid in particular, have invested more sensitive topics as governance. Choosing governance as their new target in developing countries, donors have strengthened the strategic dimension of aid. However, they have encountered several obstacles in exporting western governance patterns in developing countries whose history, social and political background, are fundamentally different. This phenomenon is urging donors to draw a more tailored governance aid-policy in developing countries. This is notably the case in Vietnam. As one of the most important aid recipient in the world, Vietnam has nonetheless kept an ideological independence vis-à-vis its creditors, in spite of a high financial reliance on aid. Now urged to tackle governance issues in the country to unlock its growth potential, Vietnam has opened a new era in its relationships with international aid, characterized by a difficult implementation of public policies inspired and funded by aid, as the topic is highly sensitive.