THE ALLOCATION OF FEDERAL FUNDING TO MEASURES DESIGNED TO SETTLE CONFLICTS IN THE NORTH CAUCASUS: THE CONDITIONS FOR ITS EFFICACY

The necessity to optimize the federal budget expenditure targets for 2015, as declared by Russia’s authorities, has put to the fore, among other things, also the issue of government target programs for the development of Russian regions, including the regions of the North Caucasus, and the actual effectiveness of those programs. As far as the North Caucasus republics are concerned, the effectiveness and feasibility of federal budget allocations in the past was reviewed predominantly in the framework of investment projects, where the federal government granted its guarantees against loans or allocated funding to infrastructure development ventures. However, in addition to these spending items, the North Caucasus imposes a signifi cant burden on the federal budget in terms of costs associated with the consequences of ethnic confl icts. In view of the current economic situation it appears especially important to optimize the plan of measures designed to deal with these consequences, to estimate their relative importance and order of priority, and to select only those that are truly needed, so as to eliminate any unnecessary expenditures. Besides, the government must ensure that the measures designed to resolve the current confl icts in the North Caucasus should not give boost to controversies in the confl ict zones – in other words, have the eff ect of attempts to put out a fi re with gasoline (as it has already happened many times in the North Caucasus).