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Abstract
The problem of measuring the efficiency and effectiveness of the work of intergovernmental organizations has both theoretical and practical dimensions. The author presents criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of the work of international organizations on the basis of parameters proposed by various international organizations, including organizations within the United Nations system. The main question in choosing such criteria is: for whom do these organizations work? Who “consumes” their services—the governments of member states or their societies? The separation of regional organizations from the final consumers of their services gives the latter the impression that they are inefficient or that their work has no effect. Eurasian regional organizations need to devote more attention to applying the instruments of public diplomacy, which can be used in the process of evaluating their effectiveness or as a means of improving their effectiveness. The author cites various examples of ways in which the effectiveness of the work of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the Eurasian Economic Union could be investigated through the prism of public diplomacy.
Notes
* The Russian effektivnost’ can usually be rendered as either “efficiency” or “effectiveness”; in this article, however, it is used only in the sense of “efficiency” whereas the word rezul’tativnost’ is used to mean “effectiveness.”—Trans.
1. M.N. Barnett and M. Finnemore, “The Politics, Power, and Pathologies of International Organizations,” International Organization, 1999, vol. 53, no. 4, pp. 699–732.
2. For the methodology used by the World Bank to evaluate the quality of national governance, see Worldwide Governance Indicators (http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/#doc).
3. See, for instance, S.V. Sevast’ianov, Mezhpravitel’stvennye organizatsii Vostochnoi Azii: evoliutsiia, effektivnost’, rossiiskoe uchastie (Vladivostok: Dal’nauka, 2008).
4. P.G. Chernikov, Kak otsenit’ OON? o nekotorykh metodakh analiza rezul’tativnosti i effektivnosti mezhdunarodnykh organizatsii (R. Valent, 2005).
5. “Normy otsenki v sisteme OON,” UN Evaluation Group, April 29, 2005 (www.uneval.org/document/download/126).
6. UNEG Norms and Standards for Evaluation, UNEG, June 2016 (www.unevaluation.org/document/detail/1914).
7. Barry MacDonald, “Evaluation and the Control of Education,” in Curriculum Evaluation Today: Trends and Implications, ed. D.A. Tawney (London: Macmillan, 1976); “Democracy and Evaluation,” public address at the University of Alberta Faculty of Education, October 17, 1978 (cited in Anders Hanberger, “Democratic Governance and Evaluation,” Paper presented at the Sixth EES [European Evaluation Society] Conference in Berlin, Germany, September 30–October 2, 2004, p. 15) (www.edusci.umu.se/digitalAssets/66/66094_hanbergergovernance04.pdf).
8. “O merakh po realizatsii vneshnepoliticheskogo kursa Rossiiskoi Federatsii,” May 7, 2012 (http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/15256).
9. See the section “Obshchestvennaia diplomatiia” (Public Diplomacy) on the Web site of Rossotrudnichestvo (http://rs.gov.ru/activities/4).
10. Public Diplomacy: A Strategy for Reform. Report of an Independent Task Force on Public Diplomacy (Washington, DC: Council on Foreign Relations, 2002) (http://media.leeds.ac.uk/papers/pmt/exhibits/579/Task-force_final2-19.pdf).
11. Public Diplomacy, p. 8.
12. See the page of information about the journal on the Web site of the publishing house Gosmedia (www.gosmedia.ru/magazines/detail.php?ELEMENT_ID=61).
13. See the information about the journal on the publisher’s Web site (http://eurasmedia.ru/o-zhurnale/).
14. The EDB was set up in 2006 as an independent financial institution. It has never been subordinate to the Eurasian Economic Community or Eurasian Economic Union, despite an overlapping set of participants (Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan).
15. An archive of issues of the journal can be found at the Web site of the EDB (www.eabr.org/r/research/publication/eei/).
16. An archive of issues of the newsletter for 2007 is available (www.eabr.org/r/research/publication/eei/vestnik/).
17. “Ekspert: sozdanie ‘virtual’nogo sekretariata’—vazhnyi shag v razvitii BRIKS,” ITAR-TASS, July 8, 2015 (http://tass.ru/politika/2103019).
18. Information portal InfoBRIKS (http://infobrics.org/).
19. Section “O proekte” (On the Project) (http://infoshos.ru/ru/?id=2).
20. Section “O proekte.”
21. For information about the CSTO Institute see the Webpage (http://odkb-csto.org/institute/).
22. “V ODKB sozdana Analiticheskaia Assotsiatsiia informatsionno-analiticheskikh struktur,” March 11, 2013 (www.odkb-csto.org/news/detail.php?ELEMENT_ID=1710).
23. See information on the Web site of the CSTO (http://odkb-csto.org/news/detail.php?ELEMENT_ID=3892&SECTION_ID=91).
24. See information on the Web site of the CSTO (www.odkb.gov.ru/e/azzzy.htm).
25. See information about the project on the Web site of the Gorchakov Foundation (http://gorchakovfund.ru/project/11696/).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Yulia Nikitina
Yulia Nikitina is a Candidate of Political Sciences, senior lecturer in the Department of World Political Processes, and research associate at the Center for Post-Soviet Research of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations.