Managing International Projects in the Period of Military-Political and Economic Instability

The present paper considers international projects in complex environments. The dataset including 335 World Bank aid projects and more than 30 project-level and country-level characteristics was constructed by the author for the purposes of the study. The objectives of the research included the creation of the typical aid project detailed description, the determination of the factors which influence the World Bank project success, the development of the practical recommendations on managing projects in severe environments. Moreover, the effectiveness of the World Bank activities in developing countries was evaluated with use of the existing literature. The data analysis conducted in IBM SPSS software resulted in revealing project outcome factors in a form of regression equation. Consumer price index, the natural logarithm of project duration and the cost overrun on the World Bank loan proved to be the most significant correlates of the project outcome measure for 335 projects completed by the World Bank in the Least Developed Countries between 1995 and 2013. This resulted in offering practical recommendations on the consideration of these project success regressors in the process of planning and implementing a project in complex environment. Furthermore, the reasons for developing and measuring new project-level and country-level characteristics were provided, including the national government’s support, mentioned as a strong project outcome factor in the recent research. Along with new variables, it is recommended to improve the project success measure so that it covers major project outcomes (duration, costs, scope) more precisely. Finally , the paper analyses the literature on World Bank projects to reveal that the effectively of this international finance institution may be posed under question, including the evidence of U.S electioneering in recipient countries with the use of the World Bank.