UNDERSTANDING DEVELOPMENT PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION: AN ACTOR‐NETWORK PERSPECTIVE

Development projects are central to international development, yet the actual practice of their implementation is under‐researched. In particular, we know little about how practice affects project performance and about how politics is enacted within such projects. This paper investigates these knowledge gaps through analysis, using actor‐network theory (ANT), of a donor‐funded reform project in the Sri Lankan public sector. By analysing, using mobilisation, interaction and disintegration of the local and global actor‐networks that typically surround such development projects, the paper explains the project's trajectory. These actions represent the practice of politics that must, in turn, be understood in relation to network actor power: not through a static conception of ‘capacitive power’ but through the dynamic enacted concept of ‘associative power’. The paper concludes by reflecting on the contribution and limitations of ANT's local/global networks component in analysing development projects, and in providing insights for development project practice. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Market-oriented approaches to capacity building in Africa

Following a brief review of recent criticism of technical cooperation as an instrument for capacity building in sub-Saharan Africa, this article examines current strategies for addressing the professional staff retention problem within African governments, and for making the market for technical cooperation more effective by allowing greater substitution of national experts for expatriate experts in project design and implementation. In order to strengthen and effectively use scarce local expertise, while avoiding its diversion to donor-financed projects, the article proposes capacity-building strategies aimed at the development of national or regional markets for development analysis and management expertise in sub-Saharan Africa.     

Administering rural development: Have goals outreached organizational capacity?

In a comparative analysis of 15 rural development projects the author finds five problem areas in their administration: project economics; design and location of infrastructure; design of project technical outputs (‘software’); support services; and maintenance and management of infrastructure. All but one of the projects reviewed were severely hampered by one or more of these problems. The author suggests that these problem areas are caused by three general patterns: disjunction between project designers and managers' working models of reality and reality in the field; goal conflict among diverse agencies involved; and the simple technical complexity of the rural development task. The author concludes by noting these three patterns are found throughout developed countries as well as the less developed, but may have more severe consequences in the less developed because of the absence of organizational and social redundancy to catch, correct and circumvent these perhaps unavoidable features of centraliy administered, complex projects. Fewer, but more organizationally enriched, projects may do more for rural development than the current pattern where many donors each design many projects, overwhelming at times the organizational capacity of less developed countries.     

Practical assessment of project performance: the ‘potential impact’ approach*

This article sets out an approach to assessing project performance, using ‘potential impact’ of the project. Its purpose is to assist project design and evaluation. In project design, potential impacts of alternative activities on the project objective are compared, in order to select activities with the greatest impact. In project evaluation, potential and actual impacts of a project are compared. Additional benefits of the approach are that it indicates ‘value for money’ of development assistance invested in projects, and easier tracing of reasons for underachievement in projects to weaknesses in their design or management. Limitations are that it relies on informed judgement of the planners or evaluators and the categories for rating performance may unavoidably be broad. It complements the logical framework approach by providing a practical design and evaluation tool. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Rural development projects in LDCs: Appraisal,participation and sustainability

Evidence on the performance of development projects shows that sustainability is seldom achieved. Project sustainability is influenced by ecological, social, political and economic systems. However, the blueprint approach to project choice tends to incorporate sustainability into the project cycle by considering only economic and environmental systems. This is done by adopting elaborate methodologies such as expanded CBA and EIA. This approach is unlikely to lead to sustainable projects. The ‘participation approach’ is more sensitive to the social and political systems than the blueprint approach. It involves people in decision-making and sees the achievement of sustainable projects as the result of people's empowerment and self-reliance. However, under certain circumstances, this approach can lead to environmentally unsustainable projects. Smaller scale projects tend to bring about sustainability, but government control might be needed to ensure this. Social obstacles exist in implementing participation but occur for top-down projects as well. Problems exist in combining the bottom-up and top-down approaches.     

Strengthening rural development management through international assistance projects

The importance of project management is well recognized and the favoured approach to improving management is to discard classroom based, technical transfer models of management development and develop training of direct relevance to field responsibilities. This article highlights the importance of recognizing in aid assisted projects that development projects serve some bureaucratic interests and hurt others with the consequence that projects need to be designed so as to maximize those interests which support its goals. The article is built around a case study of an Agricultural Management Development project in Ghana, begun in 1975 and appraised by a team led by the author in 1979. The appraisal revealed considerable achievements but also focused on facets where there were significant difficulties. These difficulties can be understood and explained in terms of the bureaucratic political interests in the Ministry of Agriculture which stood to lose from the development project, and the author indicates how the project itself could have been assisted by adding to it incentives which made the success of the project attractive to additional bureaucratic interests.     

The role of monitoring and evaluation in project planning,in relation to the upgrading of unauthorized housing areas

This paper explores the role of monitoring and evaluation in the planning process with reference to urban development projects, especially those concerned with the upgrading of unauthorized housing areas. Monitoring, it is suggested, may be separated from evaluation, which may itself be subdivided into ongoing or formative and ex post or summative evaluation, and definitions of these terms are offered. Potential audiences for monitoring and evaluation research are identified and their interests discussed. Monitoring and evaluation requirements in relation to upgrading projects are then analysed in more detail, in terms of organizational requirements, methodology, and the utilization of findings. The discussion is illustrated with examples of the monitoring and evaluation systems established in upgrading projects in Zambia, Indonesia and the Philippines. Finally, some of the substantive issues which are relevant to the evaluation of upgrading are outlined and briefly discussed. These include the efficiency of project implementation, progressive development and self help construction as a means of increasing the low cost housing stock, community participation in planning and implementation, affordability and project impact.     

Information,power, and location: World Bank staff decentralization and aid project success

Using data on World Bank staff identity and field placement, this article examines the relationship between staff presence in recipient countries and aid project performance. I find that merely placing World Bank staff in developing countries has little effect on the success of development projects. Greater field decision rights are, however, associated with differential project performance. In the most fragile states, the presence of senior personnel (World Bank Country Directors) is associated with greater project success after the “Strategic Compact” increased Country Directors' power. However—consistent with a bargaining model in which greater World Bank authority is in tension with recipient country direction of projects—as countries become less fragile, the net effect of the presence of Country Directors becomes negative. The impact of World Bank staff decentralization is mixed and appears to be driven primarily by the power of senior personnel in the field, not the ability of field staff to gather local information.     

The contribution of beneficiary participation to development project effectiveness

Criticism of development projects is widespread, and blame for disappointing results is cast in many directions. One line of criticism which has become quite strong in the recent development literature is that development projects are too top-down and need to be more bottom-up (e.g. Maguire, 1981). Projects should involve more participation by beneficiaries. In fact, some would argue that real development, by definition, must involve beneficiaries in their own improvement (e.g. Gran, 1983a,b). Without participation the people may benefit but not develop from a project. Thus participation has intrinsic value. As the recognition of the value of public, popular, beneficiary, or community participation has increased, so has the range of what is meant by participation. Some authors have expanded the concept to mean empowerment and capacity-building, sometimes including institution-building. In this paper we do not attempt to redefine participation per se. but aim instead to make an inventory of the principal concepts that have evolved in the literature so far, elicit a general model of participatory development projects, deduce the central implicit hypotheses from this literature on the relationship between participation and project effectiveness, and statistically test these hypotheses from the empirical evidence provided by AID'S series of 52 Impact Evaluation Reports. Our major question is how much does beneficiary participation contribute to project effectiveness?     

Local management of aid-funded projects

Local management means giving responsibility for the implementation and management of development projects to people and institutions in the recipient country. The main arguments for local management are that it offers the potential to increase the responsibility and accountability of national institutions and should help to build a cadre of experienced local project managers. These are all important contributions to sustainable development. There are, however, some constraints on the effectiveness of local management, including the limited supply of good managers and the difficulty of ensuring adherence by those implementing projects to donors' procedures and regulations. The role of donor agencies under local management is yet to be clearly defined. Donor agencies will face difficult professional judgments on whether, when and how to intervene where projects are not being competently managed by national institutions.     

BALANCING RESEARCH AND ORGANIZATIONAL CAPACITY BUILDING IN FRONT‐END PROJECT DESIGN: EXPERIENCES FROM DANIDA'S ENRECA PROGRAMME

North–South research capacity building (RCB) partnerships have attracted considerable academic attention during the last two decades, especially with regard to issues related to partnership governance. Less attention has been given to the management aspects of partnership implementation, but in order for partnerships to comply with general governance‐level recommendations, a better understanding is needed of how specific context‐dependent factors influence the development and execution of projects. In this article, we aim to contribute to the understanding of factors influencing the design phase of RCB partnerships and examine how they influence the balance between performing collaborative research and developing general organizational capacity. Data collection was based on a survey (n = 25), and individual interviews and focus group discussions with 17 Danish project managers from the Danish Bilateral Programme for Enhancement of Research Capacity in Developing Countries. Our results lead to rejection of the proposition that RCB projects are either focused on building capacity for research or conducting merit‐based research. Because of the ‘politics’ of the front‐end process, reality is more complex. We identify 11 specific factors influencing front‐end project management related to structure, process and relationship, and we theorize about how these factors influence the choice between research and more general capacity development activities. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The dilemma between mobilization and control in international aid the case of the Norwegian Sao Hill Sawmill project in Tanzania

How do specific aid projects in Tanzania strike a balance between control and mobilization, between efficient implementation of a well defined project and the mobilization of a local learning and competence building process? Can the same project organization do both efficiently, or does the control-mobilization relation represent a dilemma? And how do specific definitions of the balance between control and mobilization within projects affect state building locally? These questions are investigated in the context of the Sao Hill Sawmill (SHS) in Tanzania. The relationship between Tanzanian and Norwegian authorities is looked at (a) in the planning of the Mill, (b) in the early evaluations of it, and (c) in its first three years of operations. An attempt is made to show that decision models are both personally ‘constructed’ and systematically reproduced by institutions and that the distinction between control- and mobilization-focused models is of importance for how projects affect local institution building. Whether persons were recruited to the project from private or public institutions in Norway influenced their understanding of what the project was about. The data suggest that this simple distinction is significant for understanding how projects relate to local institutions and development processes. The material indicates that experts from Norwegian public institutions supported a more mobilization-oriented definition of the project, with the possibility of integrating it unobtrusively into existing local institutions. However, a surprise finding was that top-level administration in Tanzania supported the private participants more control-oriented definition.     

A planning-centred approach to project evaluation: Women in mainstream development projects

This article describes the process and outcomes of a “planning-centred” approach to three development projects in the Caribbean. A planning-centred approach to research involves the collaboration of planners and researchers in evaluation research, special attention to the dissemination and use of information and the promotion of contact between planners, sector specialists and recipients of development plans. The planning-centred approach to research is also conducive to understanding the role of gender in distributive processes. The paper describes the methodology of this form of project evaluation, alternative evaluation procedures and selected evaluation guidelines used by the agencies involved in the three Caribbean projects. The outcomes of a planning-centred approach are assessed. In the Caribbean projects the approach resulted in the better use of research information, better communication among planners, officials and project participants, greater sensitivity to women's participation in development and improved consciousness of the significance of gender for redistribute development programmes.     

Integrated rural development in Tanzania

Tanzania did not have the kind of agricultural policies, popular participation, or government bureaucratic capacity necessary for integrated rural development projects to perform well. Nonetheless the World Bank, EEC, and United States each implemented such projects there during the 1970s. The implementation and achievements of the projects varied considerably due to differences in their design as well as decisions made by the implementation teams. However the experiences of all three projects demonstrate two things: no agricultural development project can adapt to producer price disincentives; and both participation and project management require a ‘critical minimum’ level of finance and resources which the Tanzanian bureaucracy does not have. The latter observation raises the question of whether donors should attempt to build management capacity in fourth world bureaucracies or, as Goran Hyden suggests, avoid the government and work through other institutions and local organizations.     

The effects of boundary spanners on trust and performance of urban governance networks: findings from survey research on urban development projects in the Netherlands

Previous research has extensively analyzed the role, and indicated the importance, of network management for the functioning and performance of public or governance networks. In this article, we focus on the influence of boundary spanning actors in such networks—an aspect less examined in the governance network literature. Boundary spanners are considered to be important for governance network performance. Building on the literature, we expect a mediating role of trust in this relationship. To empirically test these relationships, we conducted survey research (N = 141) among project managers involved in urban governance networks: networks around complex urban projects that include the organizations involved in the governance process (the formulation of policies, decision making, and implementation) in these complex projects. We found a strong positive relationship between the presence of boundary spanners and trust and governance network performance. The results indicate a partially mediating role of trust in this relationship. Furthermore, we found that these boundary spanners originated mainly from private and societal organizations, and less from governmental organizations.     

China–Pakistan economic corridor projects development in Pakistan: Local citizens benefits perspective

China and Pakistan have initiated a mega project with the name of CPEC (China‐Pakistan Economic Corridor). CPEC projects in Pakistan are an initial stage, and government officials and policymakers expected that CPEC projects are beneficial for local Pakistani community, as this project generates several business and employment opportunities for local citizens. This research study examines the benefit of the CPEC projects and its influence on local Pakistani citizen's living standards. Data were collected online using the Google platform from 310 citizens, residing in all provinces of Pakistan. In total, 310 samples were analyzed and reported, and for data analysis, SPSS version 21 and AMOS 8.0 tools were used; the findings of this study validate most of the hypothesis. Based on results, this study discussed the local Pakistani community benefits with numerous factors such as perceived education, income, and employment. Results of this study will guide the officials and policymakers of CPEC to gain local citizen's support for the CPEC development projects and designs policies accordingly for the future projects. This study also provides important guidelines for CPEC policymakers and officials.     

Performance of Public–Private Partnerships and the Influence of Contractual Arrangements

This article seeks to answer two research questions: does public-private partnerships (ppp) live up to its promises to government? How do contractual arrangements affect ppp performance? We propose a conceptual framework to evaluate ppp performance by comparing actual project outcomes to government goals in initiating the partnerships, and to explore how a set of contractual arrangements affect the ppp performance on each identified goal. The framework is applied to a comparative case analysis of highway ppp experiences in the commonwealth of virginia (us) since the 1990s. The results show that these ppp cases were successful in accessing innovative finance, but their performance was mixed on reducing construction risk and transferring revenue risk. Generally improved over time with later projects, the ppp performance was affected not only by interaction among contractual arrangements –private partner selection, financial arrangements, role division, risk allocation, and project characteristics – but also by authorizing and supportive legislation in the policy domain.     

Risk Misallocation in Public–Private Partnership Projects in China

ABSTRACT

This article attempts to compare the preferred and actual risk allocation and then to evaluate the impact of risk misallocation (if any) on project performance. The results show a significantly negative relationship between project performance and risk misallocation. The smaller the degree of risk misallocation was, the more successful the project would be. One group of three risks (including “Corruption,” “Government's intervention,” and “Government's reliability”) and the other group of three risks (including “Approval and permit,” “Immature juristic system,” and “Land acquisition”) were found to contribute considerably to the prediction of project performance. This article provides information on the impact of risk misallocation on project performance in China's public–private partnership (PPP) projects. To enter and perform well in China's PPP market, private firms should pay particular attention to the identified risks.