TY - JOUR TI -

The Russian Framework for International Assistance: An Unfinished Plan


T2 - INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS RESEARCH JOURNAL IS - INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS RESEARCH JOURNAL KW - international aid, international development assistance, Russia AB - The process of creating a Russian framework for assistance in international development remains incomplete. Consequently, Russia uses aid delivery channels that primarily belong to and are managed by international organizations, and its own channels for implementing aid programmes are weak. Despite significant government and private sector expenses to support international development objectives over the last decade, Russia has not yet achieved the level of benefits expected to correspond to these expenditures in the form of the positive development of relationships and economic relations with some neighbouring countries. The major result of two conceptual documents on international development assistance adopted by the Russian president in 2007 and 2014 has been an understanding that development assistance should be an element of foreign policy. The most important objectives articulated in the conceptual documents are of a global, altruistic or vague character and can hardly be achieved with limited resources. Because of the significant momentum created by ongoing operations, Russia’s bilateral partnerships with aid recipients are based on ad hoc decisions without any long-term planning to achieve targets. This article analyses the Russian framework for international aid through an examination of its major elements — legislative base and terminology, goal setting, planning, methods of decision making, channels for aid delivery, accounting and evaluation, as well as informational support. The article finds that although the creation of this framework began in the mid 2000s using instruments of soft power, key components remain unformulated. Using a comparative analysis of legislative acts, the article suggests ways to create the missing elements to help increase the efficiency and effectiveness of Russia’s international development aid. AU - Mikhail Ermolov UR - https://iorj.hse.ru/en/2015-10-3/165460188.html PY - 2015 SP - 134-155 VL - 10