Author:Asare Bediako Adams
Regional Program Coordinator, Institute of Project Management Professionals
email: adams.asare@ipmp-edu.org
INTRODUCTION
In recent years, project management has become an important part of any organization; as a result of the changing nature of managing organizations due to technological advancement, and a complex competitive global marketplace (Maylor et al., 2006). Projects are the basic building blocks of development. Without successful project identification, preparation and implementation, development plans are no more than wishes and developing nations would remain stagnant or regress. Projects, Gittinger (1972) claims, are the “cutting edge” of development. Hirschman (1967) calls them “privileged particles of the development process.” Others note the central role that project management is assuming in the public administration of developing nations. “Programs and projects are increasingly used in developing countries in the process of economic and social development,” the United Nations (1971) proclaims.
“They represent a crucial element in both the formulation and implementation of development plans. Most of the administrators are more directly concerned with program and project administration than with other, more generic aspects of public administration.” For nearly a quarter of a century, projects have also been the primary instruments for grant, credit, loan and technical aid to developing countries by international assistance agencies. The volume of lending and number of projects have increased sharply over the past decade, and aid organizations such as the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the United Nations Development Programme are broadly diversifying the sectors in which they will make future investments.
Recent assessments of development planning and administration, and of the lending practices of assistance agencies by international evaluation commissions highlight the importance of well prepared and executed projects. As critical leverage points in the development process, projects translate plans into action. As vehicles for social and economic change, they can provide the means of mobilizing resources and allocating them to the production of new economic goods and social services. The paucity of well-conceived projects is a primary reason for the poor record of plan implementation in many developing countries. The inability to identify, formulate, prepare and execute projects continues to be a major obstacle to increasing the flow of capital into the poorest societies.
Keywords: Project Management, Developing Countries, Management Challenges, Management Techniques
