SUCCESS FACTORS FOR USING PROJECT METHODS FOR IMPLEMENTING DEVELOPMENT POLICY
Introduction: project methods play a significant role in implementing state policy aimed at attaining national development goals. However, Russia’s current regulation is mostly focused on the procedure for project preparation and implementation rather than quality requirements to the projects themselves. Objectives: to work out a set of quality criteria for development projects and testing these criteria using the World Bank projects implemented in Russia as cases. Methods: structural and comparative analysis, case study. Results: based on literature review and considering the specificity of development and key governance quality parameters, the paper proposes 7 quality requirements applicable to development projects, namely: variability and cyclical nature of development; qualitative nature of changes entailed by the project; positive benefit-cost ratio; sustainability of outcomes; motivation of development agents; risk management; impact assessment and “waste of development” utilization. The proposed quality requirements were tested using the data on two implemented projects aimed at supporting institutional development in tax and customs services in Russia. The results demonstrate that both projects met the proposed quality criteria to a varying degree, which affected the duration of project implementation and the level of outcomes long-term sustainability. Conclusions: to differentiate developmental projects from other types of projects, it is recommended to amend the legal framework and to use the proposed quality requirements in designing and implementing national and federal projects, as well as in external performance audit of such projects.