Assessment of the compliance of regional development plans with the principles of the smart specialization concept

Abstract

The article evaluates the development plans of a number of regions of Kazakhstan for their compliance with the criteria of «smart specialization». The authors applied a multifactorial system for evaluating documents according to the criteria Clarity (clarity of goals), Focus (industry concentration), Evidence-based (empirical validity through LQ localization coefficients), EDP (verification of the entrepreneurial discovery process) Governance (quality of multilevel management) and Monitoring (structural and logical analysis of indicators). The empirical basis of the study was made up of data from the Development Plans of two cities of republican significance (Astana, Shymkent) and three regions (Akmola, Atyrau and Karaganda) from 2021 to 2025, as well as official statistical data from the Bureau of National Statistics of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The results of the study revealed that the key barrier to regional development is the systemic prevalence of centralized unified approaches over the principles of «smart specialization». It has been established that the use of rigid templates ignores the unique resource potential and technological specifics of territories, turning strategic plans into formalized tools for implementing directives. The analysis showed a critical overload of the monitoring system with quantitative indicators with low cross-correlation, as well as a lack of real interaction with the business community and science. Evaluation of the effectiveness of development plans has established that frequent adjustments to the planned values of key national indicators conceal the real level of implementation, preventing timely identification and elimination of the reasons for the failure to achieve the initial goals.