It is officially elected by the Yunnan Provincial People's Congress and is formally responsible to the Yunnan Provincial People's Congress [zh] and its Standing Committee [zh].

Under the country's one-party system, the governor is subordinate to the secretary of the Yunnan Provincial Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.

The Provincial government is headed by a governor, currently Wang Yubo.

Its name was changed to Yunnan Provincial People's Committee (云南省人民委员会) in April 1955 and subsequently Yunnan Provincial Revolutionary Committee (云南省革命委员会) in August 1968 during the Cultural Revolution.

It reverted to its former name of Guizhou Provincial People's Government in December 1979.