PAPERS Project Management for Development
in Africa: Why Projects Are Failing and
What Can Be Done About It
Lavagnon A. Ika, Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada
ABSTRACT ■
This article discusses international develop-
ment (ID) projects and project management
problems within ID in Africa and suggests they
may fall into one or more of four main traps: the
one-size-fits-all technical trap, the accountability-
for-results trap, the lack-of-project-management-
capacity trap, and the cultural trap. It then pro-
poses an agenda for action to help ID move
away from the prevailing one-size-fits-all proj-
ect management approach; to refocus project
management for ID on managing objectives for
long-term development results; to increase aid
agencies’ supervision efforts notably in failing
countries; and to tailor project management to
African cultures. Finally, this article suggests
an agenda for research, presenting a number of
ways in which project management literature
could support design and implementation of ID
projects in Africa.
KEYWORDS: project failure; problems;
traps; international development projects;
Africa
Project Management Journal, Vol. 43, No. 4, 27–41
© 2012 by the Project Management Institute
Published online in Wiley Online Library
(wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI: 10.1002/pmj.21281
INTRODUCTION ■
ifty years after their independence, many African countries have seen
F their economies overtaken by those of countries that were worse off
in the 1960s. Ghana and South Korea had an almost equal per capita
income in 1957 (US$490). Just 30 years ago, China lagged behind
many African countries, including Malawi, Burundi, and Burkina Faso, on a
per capita income basis. Yet, approximately US$1 trillion of aid has been
transferred to Africa since the 1940s (Moyo, 2009).
At the dawn of a sixth decade of development aid, the enthusiasm of the
first years has given way to controversy and even disillusionment. According
to aid proponents, it is working, albeit not perfectly, and a “big push”—more
aid1—will surely turn things around in Africa (Sachs, 2005; Sachs et al., 2004).
Opponents argue, however, that aid is not effective, as there is little good to
show for it (Easterly, 2006). Others argue that though aid may still be part of
the solution, left alone it will fall short of addressing the needs of the “bot-
tom billion” (Collier, 2007). Still others argue that it is actually part of the
problem or even the problem and thus it should be cut in half (Calderisi,
2007) or even entirely (Moyo, 2009).
Though the heated debate among researchers and practitioners regard-
ing the effectiveness of aid is still unresolved, two questions generally chal-
lenge authors and policy makers:
1. Macroeconomic perspective: Does aid contribute to international devel-
opment (ID) in terms of growth and poverty reduction?
2. Microeconomic perspective: Do the projects and programs achieve their
specific objectives? (Hermes & Lensink, 2001; Lancaster, 1999)
In particular, the scant literature that considers whether ID project
success or failure primarily depends on countries’ political economy
(macroeconomic perspective) or project characteristics (microeconomic
perspective) fails to achieve consensus (Chauvet, Collier, & Duponchel,
2010).
Although both perspectives are complementary, the focus of most ID
research to date has been very narrow, examining projects and project man-
agement in general, despite the size of this industry sector (US$120 billion a
year in 2009), project proliferation, the importance of projects in the prevail-
ing program approach, and the questionable outcomes of projects (Ahsan &
Gunawan, 2010; Crawford & Bryce, 2003; European Commission, 2007; Ika,
Diallo, & Thuillier, 2010, 2012; Roodman, 2006). Whether “more aid” (Sachs,
2005; Sachs et al., 2004), “less aid” (Calderisi, 2007), or “dead aid” (Moyo, 2009),
1In July 2005 at Gleneagles, the G8 summit committed to doubling aid to Africa.
August 2012 ■ Project Management Journal ■ DOI: 10.1002/pmj 27
PAPERS
Project Management for Development in Africa
whether they are funded by national
governments or international organiza-
tions, projects are still relevant in ID.
Paradoxically, while the fields of
project management and ID date back
to the 1950s and the 1960s, they have
grown in parallel. ID has contributed to
the wealth of project management
knowledge, with logical frameworks,
feasibility studies, and evaluations.
Although project management has
been heralded as a promising approach
for ID (Stuckenbruck & Zomorrodian,
1987), underdevelopment in Africa has
worsened due in part to poor project
management (e.g., Eneh, 2009).
However, there is a gap in the literature
when considering the contribution of
project management as a field of knowl-
edge to ID (a few exceptions include
Crawford & Bryce, 2003; Diallo & Thuillier,
2004, 2005; Ika, 2005; Ika & Lytvynov,
2011; Ika & Saint-Macary, in press; Ika
et al., 2010, 2012; Khang & Moe, 2008).
This article examines the contribu-
tion of project management to ID. The
contribution of this article is twofold.
First, it aims at making ID projects more
effective, and as such it suggests a num-
ber of ways in which project manage-
ment literature could support design and
implementation of ID projects. Second,
its insights could be of benefit to project
management literature, insofar as it
looks at projects and project manage-
ment in the specific and emerging area
of the expanding domain of project
management—ID. This article discusses
ID projects, project management prob-
lems and traps in ID, and the potential con-
tribution of project management to ID.
What Are International
Development Projects?
Let us start here with a typical and cur-
rent ID project funded by the World
Bank. Since this falls under the program
approach, it is generally a subset of a
program or a long-term development
plan (five to ten years). To ensure the
realization of project-specific objec-
tives, the design, implementation, mon-
itoring, and evaluation of the project are
28 August 2012 ■ Project Management Journal ■ DOI: 10.1002/pmj
carefully undertaken. In the design
phase, the World Bank project supervi-
sors advise government analysts with
regard to project definition, missions,
and visions of the recipient country as
described in its national development
plan or poverty reduction strategy
paper (see Ika & Saint-Macary, in press,
for the separation of roles between
World Bank project supervisors and
project managers). Hence, they ensure
that policies, strategies, programs, and
project objectives are aligned (Ika &
Saint-Macary, in press; Ika et al., 2012).
Therefore, the design process
begins at an abstract level of concepts
(conceptual design), where the project
strategy and its strategic alignment with
the program is envisaged. From this
point, it goes through a standard design
phase, where needs, problems, stake-
holders, constraints, options, feasibility,
and risks are analyzed, and ultimately
reaches a detailed design phase (i.e., a
planning phase where the detailed
project plan is created with estimates of
duration and cost, along with appropri-
ate monitoring measures; see Ika &
Saint-Macary, in press; Ika et al., 2010;
2012; Japan International Cooperation
Agency [JICA], 2006). Once the World
Bank project is properly designed and
approved by the World Bank’s Board, it
enters the implementation phase.
Then, it is subject to strong and bureau-
cratic procedures or guidelines such as
stringent reporting, monitoring, and
evaluation requirements (e.g., Ika &
Saint-Macary, in press; Ika et al., 2010).
Broadly speaking, projects and
project management have always been
present in the field of ID. The tradition-
al approach to ensure that aid is spent
properly is through projects. Despite a
shift since the mid-1990s from the long-
time prominent project approach to the
currently dominant program approach,
project management is still important.
Indeed, projects are relevant in devel-
oping countries with weak institutional
capacity, as a program approach would
require that countries show some man-
agerial and organizational maturity
(European Commission, 2007; Ika et al.,
2010; JICA, 2006; World Bank, 1998).
Many projects are thus implemented
in a managerially, economically, and
politically different context from those in
developed countries. This is particularly
the case of ID projects funded by ID
agencies, especially multilateral ones,
like the World Bank, the United Nations,
and the European Union, and bilateral
ones, like the United States Agency for
International Development (USAID), the
Canadian International Development
Agency (CIDA), French Cooperation, and
many other governmental and non-
governmental organizations. They deliv-
er goods or services that are intended for
public use. These projects include small,
medium, large, and extra-large public
projects and cover all sectors of develop-
ing countries in sub-Saharan Africa,
North Africa, the Middle East, Southeast
Asia, Central and Latin America, and
Central Europe. These sectors typically
include infrastructure, utilities, agricul-
ture, transportation, water, electricity,
energy, sewage, mines, health, nutrition,
population, and urban development;
they also increasingly include education,
environment, social development, and
reform and governance (Diallo &
Thuillier, 2004, 2005; Youker, 2003).
Consequently, ID projects share at
least some characteristics with stan-
dard projects. In fact, they are generally
limited, temporary, unique, and multi-
disciplinary undertakings. They have a
life cycle, as they would typically evolve
from the preparation phase to the
implementation phase, and to the eval-
uation phase; they deliver goods and
services as suggested above; they also
face time, cost, and quality constraints;
finally, like other types of projects, they
require some specific tools and tech-
niques for their implementation.
However, ID projects differ greatly
from standard projects in the project
management literature and in practice. ID
projects connote the enactment of social
change in the life of poor people as well
as a specific purpose, size, location, and
timeline (Hirschman, 1967). They are
bound by a common goal of contribut-
ing to economic growth or poverty
reduction. As such, they are generally
not-for-profit projects.
ID projects are altogether technical,
social, and political undertakings. They
are social because they aim to directly or
indirectly improve the wealth of the pop-
ulation, and political because the choice
of project options, such as locations or
target groups, is often a political decision
made by ID agencies, donors, national
political leaders, and policymakers
(Diallo & Thuillier, 2004, 2005). The lack
of market pressures and the intangibility
of project objectives make ID projects
good targets for political manipulations
as donors, and political leaders may
push for pet projects for political gains
(Bokor, 2011; Khang & Moe, 2008). ID
projects are, at the same time, ideas in
response to perceived developmental
situational needs, income-generating
activities, or investments with specified
economic returns and sequences of
activities (see Ika & Hodgson, 2010;
Morgan, 1983; Rondinelli, 1983).
Different types of ID projects exist.
They can be blueprint- or physical capital-
based projects, or they can be process
projects or human-capital-based projects
(Bond & Hulme, 1999; Hulme, 1995; Ika &
Hodgson, 2010). Blueprint projects are
infrastructure projects that include typical
ID projects in the 1950s and the 1960s or
projects that must provide a package of
goods and services for low-income benefi-
ciaries, especially in rural areas as in the
1970s. The process projects typical of
the 1980s include projects like policy
advice, education, health, and institution-
al building. ID projects may also be either
hard or soft projects; they may be
autonomous projects or projects as pro-
gram components (Ika & Hodgson, 2010).
ID projects may equally be systematic
projects or emergency projects in post-
disaster or post-conflict situations.
Project Management in
International Development
Project management in international devel-
opment, or international development
project management (IDPM),2 may be
viewed as a subsector of general man-
agement aside the construction, engi-
neering, information technology (IT),
education, health, telecommunica-
tions, manufacturing, defense, and
other subsectors (Austin, 2000). As we
have seen, ID projects are specific.
Therefore, their management is also
specific. Hence, a specific mode of proj-
ect management prevails in ID, as its
use of project management approaches,
tools, and techniques is specific (Ika
et al., 2010, 2012). ID projects are fund-
ed by loans or outright grants, and the
funding agency often leads identification
of the projects and the determination of
their specific objectives (Youker, 2003).
ID projects typically last from three
to five years, but the funding can be up to
ten years (Diallo & Thuillier, 2004,
2005). ID projects are identified, pre-
pared, and implemented in a specific
context (Diallo & Thuillier, 2004, 2005;
Youker, 2003). Under the prevailing pro-
gram approach, typical ID projects
would be part of a program and fit well
into comprehensive development
frameworks (European Commission,
2007; Youker, 2003).
Project management in ID is
confronted with demanding local con-
straints and many stakeholders (Diallo &
Thuillier, 2004, 2005). There are gener-
ally two categories of stakeholders for
standard projects and, in particular,
for industrial projects: the clients, who
pay for the project and benefit from it,
and the contractors, who get paid by
the client to implement a project and
deliver expected results. However, ID
projects require at least three separate
key stakeholders: the funding agencies,
who pay for but do not receive project
deliverables; the implementing units,
who are involved in their execution;
and the target beneficiaries, who expect
some benefit from them (Khang & Moe,
2Throughout this article we will use both project management
in international development (PM in ID) and international
development project management (IDPM) interchangeably.
Hence, PM in ID ⫽ IDPM.
August 2012 ■ Project Management Journal ■ DOI: 10.1002/pmj
2008). Diallo and Thuillier (2004, 2005)
proposed a more complex network that
includes eight project stakeholders: the
national project coordinator, who is
the true project manager (also known
as the national project coordinator/
director); the project team, whose
leader is the project manager; the task
manager of the ID agency (also known
as the agency project supervisor or task
team leader); the national supervisor; a
steering committee; subcontractors
and suppliers of goods and services;
beneficiaries; and the population at
large. Ranasinghe (2008) suggested the
grouping of ID project stakeholders
into four categories: those directly
affected; those indirectly affected;
government and public sector depart-
ments; and donors, consultants, man-
agers, and private businessmen.
ID projects are generally managed
either by national and autonomous
project management units or by
national departments. They may also
be implemented by executing agencies,
including private companies or con-
sulting firms, nongovernmental organi-
zations, or partnering ID agencies. As in
standard projects, the project manage-
ment unit mainly manages administra-
tive processes. Project teams may be
involved in procurement, organization,
and control of activities carried out by
engineering firms, consultants, and
subcontractors (Diallo & Thuillier, 2004,
2005). ID projects typically follow trans-
actional processes and strict guidelines
that are laid down by ID agencies to
ensure that rigor and transparency are
maintained in the award of contracts
and performance of tasks. Hence, the
role of project supervisors or task man-
agers is somewhat unclear, as they do
not interfere with the day-to-day man-
agement of projects but are expected to
be updated on every step of projects;
and project managers are encouraged
to request authorization with a “no-
objection” from the former when it is
time to proceed with major transactions
(terms of references, short lists, contract
awards, etc.). When task managers do
29
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Project Management for Development in Africa
not grant a no-objection, the reasons
may be that project teams have strayed
too far from guidelines (e.g., a bidder is
ineligible or lacks the qualifications to
undertake the assignment, or was pre-
viously engaged in prohibited prac-
tices); there is inadequate planning of a
task; or nonconformance with project
plans. And in such instances, project
managers return to the drawing board
and repeat the whole process (Diallo &
Thuillier, 2004, 2005; Ika & Saint-
Macary, in press).
Overall, the unique environments
in which ID projects take place render
them very specific. ID projects are char-
acterized by high complexity and subtle-
ness, strong front-end activity, the relative
intangibility of their ultimate objective
of poverty reduction, a large array of het-
erogeneous stakeholders, divergent
perspectives among these stakehold-
ers, the need for compromise, project
appeal in the eyes of politicians, the
profound cultural and geographical
gap between project designers and
their beneficiaries, the asymmetrical
distribution of power between the
world’s richest countries, institutions
and people and its poorest, and the
prevalence of rather bureaucratic rules
and procedures (Ika & Hodgson, 2010;
Ika & Saint-Macary, in press; Ika et al.,
2010, 2012; Khang & Moe, 2008; Kwak,
2002; Youker, 2003). Certainly, none of
these conditions are necessarily unique
to ID projects and project manage-
ment. In fact, we read more and more
about complex projects in the standard
project management literature and
practice that experience a number of
these difficult conditions, whether they
are national or international (e.g.,
Kerzner & Belack, 2010). However,
these conditions all together challenge
the contract-based precepts and
modus operandi of standard project
management and prompt some to ask
whether project management is a mis-
nomer in the field of ID (Ika & Saint-
Macary, in press). They also collectively
result in a specific set of problems fac-
ing project management in ID, which
30 August 2012 ■ Project Management Journal ■ DOI: 10.1002/pmj
we will address in the next section of
the article (Ika & Hodgson, 2010).
International Development
Project Management Problems
and Traps
Generally in ID, the poor performance
of projects is common, and the disap-
pointment of project stakeholders and
beneficiaries seems to have become the
rule and not the exception in contem-
porary reality. But dissatisfaction with
project results and performance dates
back to the 1950s (see, for example,
John F. Kennedy’s speech to Congress in
1961). A recent McKinsey-Devex survey
suggests that 64% of donor-funded
projects fail (Hekala, 2012). The U.S.
Meltzer Commission (2000) found that
more than 50% of the World Bank’s var-
ious projects fail. The Independent
Evaluation Group (IEG), in an inde-
pendent rating, claimed that in 2010,
39% of World Bank projects were
unsuccessful (e.g., Chauvet et al., 2010).
But how bad are the World Bank proj-
ects doing in Africa?
While the World Bank has invested
more than US$5 billion in more than
700 projects in Africa over the past 20
years (Dugger, 2007), its project failure
rate is over 50% in Africa, which is
greater than the 40% failure rate
observed in other poor regions of the
world and shows that African projects
are lagging behind (Dugger, 2007).
The World Bank’s private arm, the
International Finance Corporation
(IFC), found that only half of its Africa
projects succeed (Associated Press, 2007).
Many other agencies and donor coun-
tries have not performed with much
more success (Associated Press, 2007).
Interestingly, the most successful
World Bank projects in Africa have
been in infrastructure (e.g., railroads,
ports, mobile telephone networks) as
well as in the oil, gas, and mining
industries; the weakest ones have been
in manufacturing and banking
(Dugger, 2007). (See Associated Press,
2007, for a profile of a few development
projects in Africa that went wrong and
also the blog of the World Bank chief
economist for Africa, Shantayanan
Devarajan [2012], for an account of a
few development success stories in the
continent.)
But why do ID projects fail in Africa?
In addition to the often heard com-
plaints that Africa is the toughest part of
the world for doing business and that
Africa lacks highly qualified people
(Dugger, 2007), we suggest that project
management in ID faces a range of prob-
lems and traps that would explain this
failure rate. We now turn to international
development project management prob-
lems and traps. Figure 1 sketches three
key project management problem areas
and four main project management traps
in international development.
International Development
Project Management Problems
A number of problems undermine proj-
ect performance in ID. They are described
as “the notorious and critical implemen-
tation problems,” some amenable to
change and others virtually intractable
(European Commission, 2007; Gow &
Morss, 1988; Ika & Hodgson, 2010; Kwak,
2002). For some observers, geography,
bad governance, resource curse, and
conflict bear a good share of harm (e.g.,
Collier, 2007, 2008). For others, lack of
project management capacity and poor
design are the culprits (see Williams,
2011, for the case of Nigeria). Still others
contend that it is “dirty” politics that
hurts development projects (see Bokor,
2011, for the case of Ghana). Consequently,
many problem areas or checklists of
problems have been proposed in the lit-
erature as serious obstacles to ID proj-
ects. For example, Rondinelli (1976)
offered a checklist of a “plethora of proj-
ect management problems” that occur
most frequently (p. 11).
Here we suggest that project man-
agement problems in ID fall into
three main categories: (1) structural/
contextual problems, (2) institutional/
sustainability problems, and (3) manage-
rial/organizational problems (European
Commission, 2007; Gow & Morss, 1988;

Project Management (PM)
Problems in International
Development (ID)
3 PM problem areas in ID:
• Structural/Contextual
Problems
• Institutional/Sustainability
Problems
• Managerial/Organizational
Problems
Figure 1: Why do projects fail? A diagram of project management problems and traps in international
development.
Ika & Hodgson, 2010; Kwak, 2002;
Morgan, 1983; Rondinelli, 1976, 1983).
Let us turn here to the more recent US$4
billion Chad-Cameroon pipeline proj-
ect and the US$3 billion South
Africa Medupi coal power plant project.
Why did both projects fail? The answer
to this question may be that the combi-
nation of the above three categories of
problems has been detrimental to both
projects. More specifically, though the
Chad-Cameroon pipeline project was
completed a year ahead of schedule in
2003, it fails to deliver services to the
poor, which were to be paid for by
the oil revenues—the Chadian govern-
ment used the latter to purchase arms
and military equipment (Calderisi,
2007; Ika & Saint-Macary, in press). The
South Africa Medupi coal power plant
project largely benefits major indus-
tries that consume electricity below
cost but not the poor who bear a dis-
proportionate responsibility for sharing
the costs of the project, including nega-
tive impacts on local communities near
the mines (Bank Information Center,
2012). Table 1 highlights the objectives
of the two projects and the specific
problems that they have faced. The rest
of this section discusses the three cate-
gories of problems that ID projects face
in general and in Africa in particular.
Project Management (PM) Traps
in International Development (ID)
4 PM traps in ID:
• One-Size-Fits-All
Trap
• Accountability-for-
Results Trap
• Lack-of-PM-Capacity
Trap
• Cultural Trap
Structural/Contextual Problems
Since ID projects are part of a broader
context, they face serious problems that
may be political (contradictions
between the political agenda and the
development agenda of both donors
and recipients), economic (resource
constraints and macroeconomic policy
concerns such as domestic price regula-
tions and tight budgetary restrictions),
physical/geographic (climate, location,
flora, fauna, terrain, land, and natural
resources), sociocultural (religion, lan-
guage, gender roles, and other culturally
distinct traditions), historic (ethnic ori-
gins, patterns of collective action, colo-
nialism, and previous experience with
development efforts), demographic,
and environmental (Collier, 2007, 2008;
Gow & Morss, 1988; Kwak, 2002; Moyo,
2009). However, awareness of these
structural/contextual problems is a first
step in their solution. While any of these
reasons may explain the poor showing
of ID projects in Africa, they do not tell
the whole story (Moyo, 2009).
Institutional/Sustainability Problems
Institutional and sustainability problems
can include endemic corruption, capacity
building setbacks, recurrent costs of proj-
ects, lack of political support and institu-
tional capacity to deliver sustainable
August 2012 ■ Project Management Journal ■ DOI: 10.1002/pmj
outcomes, lack of implementation
capacity by donors and recipients,
incompatibility between countries and
donors’ management systems, overem-
phasis on highly visible quick results
from donors and political actors, and
risk of collusion between the principal
(agency bureaucrats or project supervi-
sors) and the agents (project managers)
with a double moral hazard at stake
(a conflict of interest potentially detri-
mental to the effectiveness of aid and
an asymmetric information that ren-
ders difficult the evaluation of donors
and recipients countries’ activities).
Consequently, many project failures are
more institutional than technical
(Eneh, 2009; European Commission,
2007; Gauthier, 2005; Gow & Morss,
1988; Ika & Hodgson, 2010; Ika & Saint-
Macary, in press; Martens, 2005;
Morgan, 1983; Rondinelli, 1983). This is
particularly the case of stand-alone or
autonomous projects that bypass local
institutions only to break down budget-
ary, organizational, and managerial
structures in the aid-dependent coun-
tries (European Commission, 2007;
Ika & Hodgson, 2010; Morgan, 1983;
Rondinelli, 1983; World Bank, 1998).
While both the structural/contextual
problems and the institutional/sustain-
ability problems may explain ID project
failures in Africa, the managerial/
organizational project management
problems in ID also bear their fair share
of harm.
Managerial/Organizational Problems
ID projects all too frequently fail to
achieve their goals due to a number of
problems that are of a managerial/
organizational nature (Ika & Hodgson,
2010; Ika et al., 2012; Kwak, 2002).
The paucity of well conceived proj-
ects is a primary reason for the poor
record of plan implementation in
many developing countries. The
inability to identify, formulate, pre-
pare and execute projects continues
to be a major obstacle to increasing
the flow of capital into the poorest
societies. Despite more than a quarter
31
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Project Management for Development in Africa

Specific/ Structural/ Institutional/ Managerial/

World Bank Overall Contextual Sustainability Organizational
Africa Projects Objectives Problems Problems Problems
The Chad-Cameroon Build a 1,000-km Chad is a landlocked Asymmetry of power Difficulties involving
pipeline project pipeline country at the heart of between project planners/ beneficiaries and
(US$4 billion) Reduce poverty and Africa with a history of implementers and taking their voices
improve Chad’s civil war and political beneficiaries into account
institutional violence that is faced with
capacity a resource curse (e.g., Lack of political and Escalation of World
60,000 children die of institutional capacity to Bank requirements
malnutrition every year) reduce poverty by delivering with regard to the
services to the poor, paid for environmental
by oil revenues (oil revenues assessment
were used by the Chadian
government to purchase Monitoring challenges
arms and military equipment) to ensure that oil
revenues would be
used to deliver ser-
vices to the poor
The South Africa Build a 4,800-MW coal- South Africa is one of the Asymmetry of power between Difficulties involving
Medupi coal plant fired power plant most energy-intensive project planners/implementers beneficiaries and
project (US$3 economies of the world and beneficiaries taking their voices
billion) Alleviate poverty and facing an electricity crisis into account
increase electricity since early 2008 (power The project largely benefits
access to the poor shortages and rolling major industries that consume Poor consideration
blackouts) due to demands electricity below cost rather than of health, water
for power exceeding supply the poor who suffer the negative scarcity, and pres-
environmental impacts of the sures on local ser-
project vices at the project
design phase
Source. Calderisi (2007) and Bank Information Center (2012).

Table 1: Why do projects fail? A glance at two mega-projects of the World Bank in Africa and their problems.

of a century of intensive experience
with project investment, internation-
al funding institutions and ministries
of less developed countries still report
serious problems in project execution.
Many are due directly to ineffec-
tive planning and management.
(Rondinelli, 1976, p. 10, emphasis
added)
The remarkable thing about this
quote on project management prob-
lems in ID is that, almost four decades
after it was written, the issues it
describes actually stand out as a cur-
rent problem. In fact, many problems
that were found to occur most fre-
quently are still harming projects and
causing them to fail. That is the case
with many Nigerian projects that fail
badly due to poor design (Williams,
2011). Many project failures are thus
attributable to imperfect project
design; a blurred delineation of objec-
tives; an inadequate beneficiary needs
analysis; an insensitivity of project
supervisors and managers to the needs
of beneficiaries; a lack of consensus on
project objectives; differing and some-
what contradictory agendas among
stakeholders or even “dirty” politics; a
lack of project management skilled per-
sonnel; poor stakeholder management;
delays between project identification
and start-up; delays during project
implementation; cost overruns; poor
risk analysis; difficulties involving local
beneficiaries due to literacy, distance,
and other communication problems;
coordination; monitoring and evalua-
tion failure; and others (Ahsan &
Gunawan, 2010; Bokor, 2011; Diallo &
Thuillier, 2004, 2005; Gow & Morss,
1988; Ika & Hodgson, 2010; Ika et al., 2010,
2012; Rondinelli, 1976; Stuckenbruck &
Zomorrodian, 1987; Youker, 1999, 2003).
In summary, we argue first that
many project management problems
in ID would explain project failures and
that knowledge of them already exists.
However, we suggest that project man-
agement problems in ID fall into
three main categories: structural/
contextual problems, institutional/
sustainability problems, and managerial/
organizational problems. We further
contend that while every one of these
project management problem areas

32 August 2012 ■ Project Management Journal ■ DOI: 10.1002/pmj

may explain the poor showing of ID
projects, they do not tell the whole
story. Accordingly, we submit that
remedial actions that address the three
main categories of project manage-
ment problems, all together, can sub-
stantially improve project implementa-
tion as well as the chances for project
success.
However, ID projects are too com-
plex and the task ahead too challenging
to address all of these problems togeth-
er: “Mankind always takes up such
problems as it thinks it can solve”
(Hirschman, 1967, p. 14, following Karl
Marx). Therefore, we argue, pragmati-
cally, that there are project manage-
ment traps that deserve the attention of
ID project decision makers and practi-
tioners and that breaking free of these
traps would help ID projects succeed.
International Development
Project Management Traps
The concept of a development trap is
not new. It dates back to the 1950s, as
does the ID field itself (see Nelson,
1956). However, the concept of the
development trap and its corollary, that
of the poverty trap, have been most
recently associated with the works of
the economist Jeffrey Sachs, who has
focused on how malaria and other
health problems keep countries poor.
Sachs et al. (2004, p. 121) write, “Our
explanation is that tropical Africa, even
the well-governed parts, is stuck in a
poverty trap, too poor to achieve robust,
high levels of economic growth and, in
many places, simply too poor to grow at
all.” And Sachs (2005, p. 245) writes,
“The poor start with a very low level of
capital per person, and then find them-
selves trapped in poverty because the
ratio of capital per person actually falls
from generation to generation.” Even
more recently, Collier (2007) highlighted
four traps from which countries have to
break free if they are to develop: the
conflict trap, the natural resources trap,
the trap of being landlocked with bad
neighbors, and the trap of bad gover-
nance in a small country.
Although the concept of the devel-
opment trap has been around for a long
time, it remains controversial. Collier
(2007, p. 5) writes, “Development traps
have become a fashionable area of aca-
demic dispute, with a fairly predictable
right-left divide. The right tends to deny
the existence of development traps,
asserting that any country adopting
good policies will escape poverty. The
left tends to see global capitalism as
inherently generating a poverty trap.”
Despite this unresolved debate, this
article is about four traps that have
received little attention in project man-
agement in the ID industry sector:
the one-size-fits-all technical trap; the
accountability-for-results trap; the lack-
of-project-management-capacity trap;
and the cultural trap. We argue that ID
projects get caught in one or another of
the four traps, not to say all of them
altogether. Projects are likely to fail
when they face such traps, and they
have to break free of them if they are to
increase their chances for success.
The One-Size-Fits-All Trap
Similar to standard project manage-
ment, project management in ID seems
to be dominated by a prescriptive,
rational, and instrumental one-size-fits-
all approach that is grounded in the tra-
dition of fields such as engineering,
architecture, and economics and that
assumes that all types of projects and
project models share the same charac-
teristics (Baum, 1970, 1978; Ika et al.,
2010; Ika & Hodgson, 2010; Johnson,
1984; Picciotto & Weaving, 1994). As
noted in Ika and Hodgson (2010, p. 8),
“They (models) are normative or ideal;
they rely upon logically ordered
sequences of activities which are deter-
mined by a known and explicit objec-
tive or set of objectives; they are rational
since their objectives constrain the
analysis of options and risks; their plan-
ners are professional and, as such, are
expected to act rationally, suppressing
subjective considerations” (Hulme,
1995). The World Bank, for example, has
standard procedures that all its projects
August 2012 ■ Project Management Journal ■ DOI: 10.1002/pmj
must follow no matter their size and
content.
Not surprisingly, the current donor-
recipient paradigm requires rigorous
project plans and a robust toolbox to
the extent that there is an overemphasis
on financial and technical feasibility at
the expense of social, cultural, environ-
mental, and political feasibility (Ika &
Hodgson, 2010; Rondinelli, 1976;
Stuckenbruck & Zomorrodian, 1987).
This prescriptive “one-size-fits all”
approach, also called the “blueprint
approach,” is most concerned with
“what should be done” rather than
“what does happen,” which repre-
sents a descriptive approach
(Analoui, 1989). Not surprisingly,
the prevailing perspective of proj-
ects is the planning view where
“a project is a planned complex of
actions and investments, at a select-
ed location, that are designed to
meet output, capacity, or transfor-
mation goals, in a given period of
time, using specified techniques”
( Johnson, 1984, p. 112). Hence,
the belief that project planning is the
fundamental activity since there is a
need for a systematic way of “getting
the job done” (Analoui, 1989; Ika,
Diallo, & Thuillier, 2010). As a conse-
quence, project analysts have
shared a deep conviction that ID
project failure can be best
addressed by the use of better pro-
cedures, tools and techniques
which would lead to more effective
IDPM, and thus, project success.
(Ika & Hodgson, 2010, p. 9)
The Accountability-for-Results Trap
There is too much emphasis within aid
agencies on strong procedures and
guidelines, which leads to a culture of
“accountability for results” and of little
attention to “managing for results.”
Project management in ID witnesses a
strong and bureaucratic procedures
and guidelines orientation. Ika et al.
(2010, p. 82) writes, “The procedural
aspects of project implementation may
typically cover inter alia the format and
the timing of disbursement and of project
33
PAPERS
Project Management for Development in Africa
funds reports, compliance with donor
financial reports on how the money has
been spent and how to apply for
replenishment of project bank
accounts, and other statutory require-
ments such as compliance with pro-
curement guidelines.”
Furthermore, although results-
based management (RBM) as an
approach and a tool has been around
in ID for more than a decade, it has
been too focused on reporting to exter-
nal stakeholder audiences and too little
on using performance information in
internal management decision-making
processes to achieve better results (Ika &
Lytvynov, 2011). RBM has indeed two
intended functions: an internal and an
external.
When performance information is
used in internal management
processes with the aim of improving
performance and achieving better
results, this is often referred to as
managing-for-results. Such actual
use of performance information has
often been a weakness of perfor-
mance management in the OECD
countries. Too often, government
agencies have emphasized perfor-
mance measurement for external
reporting only, with little attention
given to putting the performance
information to use in internal man-
agement decision-making process-
es. (Binnendijk, 2000, p. 7)
When performance information is
used for reporting to external stake-
holder audiences, this is sometimes
referred to as accountability-for-
results. Government-wide legislation
or executive orders often mandate
such reporting. Moreover, such
reporting can be useful in the com-
petition for funds by convincing a
sceptical public or legislature that an
agency’s programs produce signifi-
cant results and provide “value for
money.” Annual performance reports
may be directed to many stakehold-
ers, for example, to ministers, parlia-
ment, auditors or other oversight
agencies, customers, and the general
public. (Binnendijk, 2000, p. 7)
34 August 2012 ■ Project Management Journal ■ DOI: 10.1002/pmj
In 2007, the United Nations Develop-
ment Programme (UNDP) notes, “Results
based management is seen mainly as a
reporting regime, rather than a results-
informed management regime” (p. 88).
Hence, there are a lot of incentives for
project managers to spend a good deal of
time and effort on monitoring and eval-
uation; consequently, there exists a sig-
nificant correlation between the use of
monitoring and evaluation tools and
project “profile,”3 a success criterion
that is an early pointer of long-term
impact (Ika et al., 2010). “Knowing how to
report and reporting on time is therefore
of great importance” for project man-
agers (e.g., Maddock, 1992, p. 405).
The Lack-of-Project-Management-
Capacity Trap
Analysts have found that most
developing nations simply do not
have adequate institutional capacity
or trained personnel to plan and
implement projects effectively. “In
one country after another,” former
World Bank official Albert Waterston
contends, “it has been discovered
that a major limitation in imple-
menting projects and programs, and
in operating them upon completion,
is not financial resources, but
administrative capacity. (Rondinelli,
1976, pp. 10–11, emphasis added)
What was true almost four decades
ago still remains. There is a lack of proj-
ect management capacity in ID. In fact,
national governments and organiza-
tions in Africa lack project management
capacity and thus experience lack of
skilled personnel in project execution,
procurement, or monitoring and evalu-
ation; shortages of project manage-
ment–trained civil servants, delays in
appointing personnel, or ineffective use
3Please note that “profile” stands for a group of project
success criteria that include conformity of the goods and
services, national visibility of the project, project reputa-
tion with international development agencies, and proba-
bility of additional funding for the project (Diallo &
Thuillier, 2004).
of those appointed (e.g., Dugger, 2007;
Gow & Morss, 1988; Ika et al., 2010).
Project management in failed coun-
tries is no exception. Indeed, it often
poses unprecedented challenges. Most
failed countries in Africa (such as
Burundi, Chad, the Democratic Republic
of Congo, Liberia, and Sudan) face severe
challenges, such as a lack of institutional
capacity, political instability, high vio-
lence, poor governance, destroyed basic
infrastructure, devastated physical envi-
ronment, and pressing needs of scarce
resources and skills. Hence, aid agencies
face high costs and high risks (including
the security of their personnel) if they
choose to operate in such countries.
Aid agencies turn to projects
instead of programs in failing countries
with weak governance and poor poli-
cies, but at the same time, under the
pressure of efficiency to reduce their
administrative costs relative to money
they disburse, they reduce their super-
vision efforts; this harms the achieve-
ment of the development goals and
objectives, notably in failing countries
where projects are known to be much
more likely to fail (Collier, 2007, p. 118).
Failing states’ projects are more likely to
fail—or at best, less likely to succeed—
if supervision costs money and aid
agencies such as the World Bank reduce
their presence to the bare minimum.
The Cultural Trap
The traditional top-down approach that
dominates development interventions
fails to take into account major decision
makers, fails to address the problem of
rationality, and fails to account for the
lack of local commitment that leads to
projects being considered “donor” proj-
ects rather than “local” projects (Ika &
Hodgson, 2010; Youker, 1999, 2003). In
particular, project management tools
and approaches in ID have yet to be tai-
lored or at least harnessed to the cultur-
al context of Africa (Ika et al., 2010;
Muriithi & Crawford, 2003). Although
there are few written resources for the
African project manager, cross-cultural
project management issues as they
apply to Africa are common. In fact, the
current project management orthodoxy
and the tools it proffers, such as the Gantt
chart, are rationality- and efficiency-
driven, and based on the Western
Greco-Roman philosophical premise
that man is a rational being, which is
not always the case in Africa (Muriithi &
Crawford, 2003; Rwelamila, Talukhaba, &
Ngowi, 1999).
Rwelamila et al. (1999) trace “the
African project failure syndrome”
back to the lack of a metaphor of
group solidarity between African
project stakeholders coined “ubun-
tu” (harmony or literally translated
“a person is a person”), which was
due to an inappropriate traditional
project organizational structure.
MIST cardinal principles, i.e.
Morality, Interdependence, Spirit of
man and Totality . . . have proven to
be critical for PM in Africa. First, the
belief that moral base is fundamen-
tal to project success and the PM
must be committed to fair practices;
second, the belief that every project
stakeholder is part of the project suc-
cess formula; third, the belief that a
project is present to serve man with
unconditional respect and dignity,
and a failure to so condemns its
existence; last, the belief that a PM
system is made of a number of vari-
ables and that for it to be a success,
it requires a number of improve-
ments from every internal client.
(Rwelamila et al., 1999, p. 338, quot-
ed in Ika et al., 2010, p. 83)
Finally, although ID projects are
very specific and their environments
unique, remember that these problems
and traps are not entirely specific to
project management in ID; therefore,
we contend that the standard project
management literature may contribute
to ID. Hence, ID project practitioners
may turn project management in ID
into project management for ID. We
now argue how to address these project
management traps and discuss the
potential contribution of project man-
agement to ID.
Contribution of Project
Management to International
Development
More recently, Easterly (2006) called our
attention to the debate between the losing
“Planners” and the winning “Searchers”
in development aid.
Let’s call the advocates of the tradi-
tional approach the Planners, while
we call the agents for change in the
alternative approach the Searchers.
The short answer on why dying poor
children don’t get twelve-cent medi-
cines, while healthy rich children do
get Harry Potter, is that twelve-cent
medicines are supplied by Planners
while Harry Potter is supplied by
Searchers. This is not to say that
everything should be turned over to
the free market that produced and
distributed Harry Potter. The poorest
people in the world have no money to
motivate market Searchers to meet
their desperate needs. However, the
mentality of Searchers in markets is a
guide to a constructive approach to
foreign aid. (Easterly, 2006, p. 5)
He contends that Planners design big
plans (e.g., Millennium Development
Goals) to address big problems (e.g., the
needs of the “bottom billion” poor peo-
ple). He adds that Planners set forth big
goals such as making poverty history
(Sachs, 2005; Sachs et al., 2004) but fall
short when it comes to implementing
these strategies through projects at a rea-
sonable cost with the available means.
How can the West end poverty in the
Rest? Setting a beautiful goal such
as making poverty history, the
Planners’ approach then tries to
design the ideal aid agencies,
administrative plans, and financial
resources that will do the job. Sixty
years of countless reform schemes
to aid agencies and dozens of differ-
ent plans, and US$2.3 trillion later,
the aid industry is still failing to
reach the beautiful goal. The evi-
dence points to an unpopular con-
clusion: Big Plans will always fail to
reach the beautiful goal.” (Easterly,
2006, p. 11, emphasis added)
August 2012 ■ Project Management Journal ■ DOI: 10.1002/pmj
He then argues that the Searchers do
many useful things to meet the desperate
needs of the poor and thus find what does
work to help them. Finally, he suggests that
as Searchers do not know the answers to
the big problems of development and that
poverty issues are altogether political,
social, historical, institutional, and techni-
cal factors, they turn to individual, specif-
ic, and effective homegrown initiatives,
solutions, and projects, such as getting
medicine to dying children.
Whether we are proponents of big
plans or advocates of change in Africa,
whether we are Planners or Searchers,
we may rely on project management to
achieve our goals. That is why, even 25
years ago, project management was
hailed as “the promise for developing
countries—the potential of the project
management approach is so promising
that, even though it must be drastically
modified or tailored to adapt to local
cultures, it can be extremely important
to the future of developing countries”
(Stuckenbruck & Zomorrodian, 1987,
p. 174). Currently, Africa is replete with
numerous, sound, wonderful, brilliant,
captivating, impeccable, colorful, and
well-written development visions, poli-
cies, programs, plans, and projects (see
Eneh, 2009 for the case of Nigeria, which
accounts for one-fifth of the population
of the African continent). Alas, most of
the bottom billion people are from Africa
(Collier, 2007), underdevelopment is
more about poor implementation of ID
projects than lack of visions and pro-
grams, and abandoned, failed, or poor-
performing ID projects are common in
Africa and often destroy its potential for
development (e.g., Eneh, 2009).
For that reason, project manage-
ment has failed to deliver its promise to
develop and to meet the needs of poor
people in Africa. The development
practitioners need to enhance project
management if they would like to make
this promise a reality. To that end, we
propose an agenda for action and an
agenda for research, draw on the
insights from the standard project
management theory and practice, and
35
PAPERS
Project Management for Development in Africa
A Tenfold Agenda for Research
A Fourfold Agenda for Action
Figure 2: An agenda for action and an agenda for research to address project management traps in
international development.
specifically suggest a few ways to
address the project management traps
in ID. In a nutshell, we suggest that
project management in ID, despite its
specificity, may learn a lot from the the-
ory and practice of project manage-
ment in conventional settings such as
construction and software manage-
ment, which have had remarkable suc-
cess owing to a methodical approach to
management, including some formal
project management education for
their project professionals and the use
of some project management stan-
dards (e.g., Hekala, 2012; Ika & Saint-
Macary, in press). Hekala (2012) writes,
“Hopefully in the future, donors will
incorporate the collective knowledge of
decades of practice, millions of proj-
ects, and hundreds of thousands of pro-
fessionals in project management into
their work, and then demand that those
implementing projects they fund do
the same.” Figure 2 sketches a fourfold
agenda for action and a tenfold agenda
for research to address project manage-
ment traps in ID.
An Agenda for Action
Let us revisit the traps and see how
they can be broken. To paraphrase an
African proverb, the best time to
address these four project management
traps was 20 years ago. The second-best
time is now.4
4“The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second-
best time is now” (Moyo, 2009, p. 155).
36 August 2012 ■ Project Management Journal ■ DOI: 10.1002/pmj
International Development
Project Success
Breaking the One-Size-Fits-All Trap:
Drawing Insights From Alternative
Project Management Approaches
Project management for ID should
refrain from using the universalist one-
size-fits-all approach and draw insights
from alternative project management
approaches, such as the eclectic contin-
gent and critical perspectives. One can-
not continue to overlook, ignore, or
suppress the intrinsically political
nature of projects in favor of an ideal-
ized, apolitical, and neutral rationalism
(Ika & Hodgson, 2010). In that regard,
hybrid and contingent models at the
midpoint between the traditional and
the political approaches, in which proj-
ects are both technocratic exercises and
political arenas for conflict, bargaining,
and trade-offs, in which data and tech-
nical tools, power, and skill are used to
manipulate the agenda, to block a
potential item, or to withhold informa-
tion that does not suit the holder’s
needs are worth contemplating (Hulme,
1995; Ika & Hodgson, 2010).
Bond and Hulme (1999, p. 1354)
note, “The approach best suited to any
particular circumstance is dependent
on the objectives of the intervention
and the specific context.” They further
quote Johnston and Clark (1982,
pp. 23–28), “At the heart is the recogni-
tion that the challenges of development
are not well-structured problems that
can be ‘thought through’ by clever peo-
ple. Rather they are ‘messes’ that have to
be ‘acted out’ by social experimentation
and interaction.” Context in general,
the type of project, the political situa-
tion, actors in presence, and the type of
design, supervision, and implementa-
tion approach all matter (e.g., Ika &
Hodgson, 2010). Project management
approaches need to be tailored to these
specific circumstances.
Breaking the Accountability-for-
Results Trap: Refocusing Project
Management for ID on Managing
Objectives for Long-Term Results
Project management for ID should
refocus on managing objectives for
long-term development results and shy
away from its emphasis on visible,
short-term outcomes and efficiency. In
this regard, the internal function and
use of results-based management need
to incorporate big development goals
and key success criteria and factors into
the design of ID projects for better
chances of project success (Ika &
Lytvynov, 2011).
For example, a “management-per-
result” project design approach may
include Millennium Development
Goals, key success criteria and factors,
and “quick and dirty” cost-benefit esti-
mations. It calls on project designers to
focus their attention on the most
important level of project results for
which rough estimates of costs and
benefits are worth being known (see Ika &
Lytvynov, 2011, for the “management-
per-result” project design approach).
The underlying idea is that one may
incorporate the “management-per-
result” project design approach into the
project design component of RBM and
to align the expected project benefits
with the Millennium Development
Goals under the prevailing program
approach in the aid agencies (Ika &
Lytvynov, 2011).
Such an approach could be comple-
mented by the “potential impact”
approach, a technique that provides a
simple and rough tool at the project
design phase that relies on the
informed judgment of the planners,
identification of key obstacles and how
removable they are, consideration of
whether the project would take place
without public investment, and any
external costs resulting from the proj-
ect. It then compares potential impacts
of alternative activities on the project
objectives in order to select the ones
with the greatest impact (Hubbard,
2000). Hence, one could improve proj-
ect design and, consequently, the man-
aging-for-results function of RBM.
Furthermore, instead of a strong
procedures and guidelines orientation,
aid agencies should move away from
the constant pressure of demonstrating
results to a strong results culture where
incentives for managing for results
(which include taking and not simply
avoiding risks) are put in place.
Otherwise, the aid agencies are too big
and too bureaucratic to succeed.
Breaking the Lack-of-Project-
Management-Capacity Trap:
Improving Project Supervision
by Aid Agencies
It is through supervision that agencies
can ensure that development results
are achieved. World Bank project super-
vision, for example, has been assumed
to be a global, generic, and multidi-
mensional project critical success fac-
tor; furthermore, it has been shown
that project supervision critical success
factors include monitoring, coordina-
tion, design, training, and institutional
environment (Ika et al., 2012).
In particular, it has been suggested
that project supervision is even more
crucial for ID projects in postconflict/
war situations; that the probability of
success of World Bank projects appears
to increase as peace lasts; and that a
good implementation capacity is a crit-
ical success factor for postconflict/
war projects (Chauvet et al., 2010).
Surprisingly, aid agencies reduce their
supervision efforts notably in failing
countries.
Project supervision efforts should
increase in aid agencies and notably in
failing countries with weak governance
and poor policies.
Supervision costs money: it comes
from the administrative budgets of
aid agencies. So an implication is
that when agencies operate in failing
states, they should budget for a
considerably higher ratio of admin-
istrative costs to money actually dis-
bursed. Of course, agencies are
under pressure to reduce their
administrative costs relative to the
money they disburse; this is some-
times used as a measure of agency
efficiency. But it is misplaced. The
environments in which agencies
should increasingly be operating are
those in which to be effective they
will need to spend more on adminis-
tration, not less. Mismanagement of
bureaucratic performance is a gener-
al problem. In aid agencies it encour-
ages low-risk, low-administration
operations that are the precise
opposite of what they will need to be
doing to meet the coming develop-
ment challenges. (Collier, 2007,
p. 118, emphasis added)
On the other side, aid agencies need
to include in their personnel more peo-
ple with project management skills and
academic background. Regrettably, the
World Bank, for example, is still domi-
nated by economists. Hence, most of
the ID professionals are “accidental”
project managers, as they hold project
and program management responsibil-
ities yet lack any formal project man-
agement education and background.
Therefore, we strongly contend that
donors should care more about project
management (Hekala, 2012)—and so
should poor countries (Williams, 2011).
Breaking the Cultural Trap: Tailoring
Project Management Approach to
African Values and Culture(s)
Western management practices and
tools frequently fail because they do
not achieve acceptance in the devel-
oping countries. Experience has
repeatedly demonstrated that the
implementation of such manage-
ment practices inevitably encounters
formidable political, organizational,
and cultural obstacles. The most
August 2012 ■ Project Management Journal ■ DOI: 10.1002/pmj
formidable of these obstacles are cul-
tural ones, which are extremely dif-
ficult to do much about during the
lifetime of the typical project. In
addition, every developing nation
has different cultural heritages
and customs, which must be
approached in very different ways.
The project management approach
must therefore be modified or
tailored in every way necessary to
overcome these obstacles to the
use of project management.
(Stuckenbruck & Zomorrodian,
1987, p. 174, emphasis added)
Almost 25 years later, although
empirical evidence shows that Western
management concepts and approaches
may not be universally valid, little
insight is offered on how to adopt proj-
ect management approaches, tools, and
techniques in Africa. Surprisingly, very
little has been written about project
management in Africa. African coun-
tries may be more collectivist; they may
have a higher power distance; they may
score moderately on uncertainty avoid-
ance and masculinity; and this may
have implications for project manage-
ment in Africa (Muriithi & Crawford,
2003). What kinds of implications?
There may seem to be a strong need to
cope with political and community
demands on project resources and to
“sell the benefits” of the project to pow-
erful hierarchies and stakeholders in
order to minimize political interference;
also, we see that while most project
management tools can work in Africa,
attention should be paid to reward and
recognition systems, particularly those
based on Western theories of motiva-
tion (Muriithi & Crawford, 2003).
As these authors acknowledge
themselves, studies such as theirs are
welcome: “There is urgent need for
empirical work to: formalise a project
management framework for Africa,
confirm which tools and techniques of
the present management orthodoxy
work, which one does not and why, and
articulate an effective indigenous
approach to project management in
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Project Management for Development in Africa
Africa” (Muriithi & Crawford, 2003,
p. 318).
Following these authors, we argue
that there is a need for an African proj-
ect management approach that is tai-
lored to African values, cultures, and
sociality. It has long seemed to us prob-
lematic, and even embarrassing, that so
many of Africa’s project management
problems should be studied by non-
Africans, and non-African men in
particular. Africa needs project man-
agement specialists that address and
debate how to create or adopt project
management concepts, tools, tech-
niques, and approaches.
An Agenda for Research
Ika and Hodgson (2010) have shown that
the same three approaches that describe
chronologically and historically stan-
dard project management are insightful
in project management for ID, despite
its specificity. Hence, it is possible to
describe and summarize project man-
agement history in ID as moving from a
traditional, instrumental, and monolith-
ic approach better suited to blueprint
projects toward contingent approaches
that are better suited to process proj-
ects. Finally, this process points toward
the potential contribution of a critical
approach that draws on broader criti-
cal and postcolonial discourses to
embed the macro-political context in
our understanding of the operation and
impact of ID projects.
Therefore, ID could learn a lot from
project management research, despite
the recurring gap between theory and
practice. Here are a few research paths
that may deserve attention:
1. The notion of project, under the new
program approach orthodoxy (e.g.,
European Commission, 2007; World
Bank, 1998) needs to be revisited.
Project management for ID would
benefit from a systematic compari-
son between project and project
management figures between proj-
ect and program approach.
2. If an ID project is, first and foremost, a
project, one could argue that standard
38 August 2012 ■ Project Management Journal ■ DOI: 10.1002/pmj
project management would offer use-
ful methodologies, approaches, and
tools and techniques for ID (e.g., Ika et
al., 2010). To what extent might the
nine Project Management Institute
(PMI) Knowledge Areas and its 42
project management processes apply
to the specificity of ID projects?
3. There have been few empirical
works on process projects (Bond &
Hulme, 1999; Picciotto & Weaving,
1994), and project success factors
such as flexibility, participation,
ownership, coordination, and har-
monization of procedures deserve
their fair share of articles in the proj-
ect management literature.
4. Considering the increasing impor-
tance of the RBM approach in ID,
there should be studies that address its
potential contribution to project iden-
tification and design, and project/
program success in ID (e.g., Ika &
Lytvynov, 2011).
5. In line with recent developments in
the PM field on portfolio/program/
project strategy (e.g., Artto, Kujala,
Dietrich, & Martinsuo, 2008; Smyth,
2009; Srivannaboon & Milosevic,
2006; Thiry & Deguire, 2007), the
question of strategic alignment of
programs and projects with larger,
big-picture goals, such as the
Millennium Development Goals,
should be addressed.
6. More research is needed on ID proj-
ect success criteria and success fac-
tors and the interrelationships
between the former and the latter
(e.g., Ika et al., 2010, 2012).
7. In line with recent works on project
sponsorship and the relationship
between project sponsors and man-
agers in the project management lit-
erature (e.g., Bryde, 2008), studies
should investigate the project
supervision factor and address the
collaboration between project
supervisors and managers in the
context of ID (e.g., Ika et al., 2012).
8. Considering the contribution of the
critical theory to project manage-
ment literature (Hodgson & Cicmil,
2006), authors should address the
alternative approaches to the pre-
vailing universal approach to proj-
ect management in ID (e.g., Ika &
Hodgson, 2010).
9. Considering the important role that
NGOs play in ID, more studies are
necessary to understand the concep-
tions that these players hold on
project success, success criteria, and
success factors and compare these
conceptions to the perceptions of the
aid agencies (e.g., Khang & Moe, 2008).
10. The question of learning in project
management for ID deserves atten-
tion and could shed light on the
experience of aid agencies in utiliz-
ing project success factors in the
management of future projects
(Biggs & Smith, 2003; Easterly,
2007).
Conclusion
This article explores the contribution of
PM to development in Africa. It is based
on four established facts: (1) the fields
of both project management and ID
that date back to the 1950s and the
1960s have grown in parallel, with very
few attempts to bridge their divide
or compare theories and practices;
(2) more than 50 years after their inde-
pendence, many African countries have
been overtaken in development by
some countries that were worse off
than they were in the 1960s; (3) approx-
imately US$1 trillion of aid has been
transferred to Africa with little good to
show for it; and (4) whether they are
funded by national governments or
international organizations, projects
are still relevant in ID.
As underdevelopment in Africa is
more a result of poor implementation
than of a lack of big development goals,
and as poor performance of ID projects is
pervasive, this article suggests that proj-
ect management problems in ID would fall
into three main categories: structural/
contextual, institutional/sustainability, and
managerial/organizational problems. As
these problems are not entirely specific to
project management in ID, and as it is
impossible to address all these prob-
lems together, this article calls for
attention to be focused on four main
traps that ID project decision makers
and practitioners have to break free of
in order to increase the chances for
project success: the one-size-fits-all
technical trap, the accountability-for-
results trap, the lack-of-project-
management-capacity trap, and the
cultural trap.
This article then proposes an agen-
da for action to address these traps and
contribute to making ID projects more
effective and efficient for the billion-
dollar investments in Africa. In doing
so, this article encourages a move away
from the prevailing one-size-fits-all
project management approach in ID to
refocus project management for ID on
managing objectives for long-term
development results, to increase the aid
agencies’ supervision efforts notably in
failing countries, and to tailor project
management to African cultures. But if
the development practitioners are to
successfully address the chronic prob-
lems and traps that harm projects, they
should learn from failure (e.g., Easterly,
2007). Furthermore, this article sug-
gests an agenda for research (i.e., a
number of ways in which PM literature
could support design and implementa-
tion of ID projects in Africa). This is our
clarion call for overcoming or even
breaking the mostly economic “discipli-
nary monopoly of development
research at the World Bank” (Rao &
Woolcock, 2007) in order to help
projects succeed. So, let us welcome
development project (management)
research!
Finally, though this article aims to
contribute to making ID projects suc-
ceed, this is admittedly just one part of
the development equation. Thus, we
hasten to admit that making projects
succeed may not be sufficient in mak-
ing development happen: “The point at
issue is not the success or failure of this
or that ‘development project’ but a
general way of envisaging harmonious
and equitable cohabitation of all those
living today—and in the future—on this
planet” (Rist, 2008, p. 258). ■
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Lavagnon A. Ika is an assistant professor of proj-
ect management at the Telfer School of
Management of the University of Ottawa, Canada.
He holds an MSc in project management and a
PhD in business administration with a specializa-
tion in project management from the Université
du Québec à Montréal, a Montreal-based joint
doctoral program with McGill, Concordia, and
HEC. His PhD dissertation focused on studying
the key success criteria and factors for interna-
tional development projects from the perspective
of the World Bank project supervisors and man-
agers. Over the past 12 years, he has taught proj-
ect management, mainly in Canada (University
of Ottawa, Université du Québec à Montréal, and
École Polytechnique de Montréal), but also in
Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Lebanon. His
research interests include the study of project,
program, and portfolio management in interna-
tional development.
His work has been published in numerous jour-
nals, including the Project Management Journal,
the International Journal of Project Management,
the International Journal of Managing Projects in
Business, and presented at research confer-
ences, including the PMI Research and Education
Conference, the International Research Network
on Organizing by Projects (IRNOP), Making
Projects Critical, the International Academy of
African Business and Development (IAABD), the
Academy of Management (AoM), and the
European Academy of Management (EURAM). He
recently received the Emerald Literati Network
2011 Award for Excellence (Highly Commended
Paper Award Winner).
In May 2011, he co-organized the first interna-
tional project management congress of the
Université du Québec. In July, he co-organized a
panel symposium on “What Makes International
Development Project Management Research
Relevant, and Why Does It Matter” that will be
held during the PMI Research and Education con-
ference in Limerick, Ireland. He is currently a co-
guest editor of a forthcoming special issue of the
Journal of African Business on “Why Do Projects
Fail in Africa?”
41