The project orthodoxy in development: Re-evaluating the cutting edge

This paper takes a broad critical posture towards the project as an instrument of development. It addresses the multidimensional features of what has become the project orthodoxy in development management, and some of the attending effects. It suggests that some of the virtues of the project have been offset by a number of negative consequences as it has become institutionalized in the procedures of both donor agencies and national governments in developing countries. An attempt is made to distinguish between those kinds of activities in which the project mode is most useful, and those for which its basic features and attendant trappings have great limitations. The argument concludes with a reassertion of the need for better linkages with programme management and the sources of policy.