Introduction

Chapter 18 - Using the Web for Enhancing Decision-Making: UN Project Failures in Sub-Sahara Africa (SSA)
Managing IT in Government, Business & Communities
by Gerry Gingrich (ed)
Idea Group Publishing 2003

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The aim of this chapter is two-fold: (1) managing projects and (2) flow of public information. The framework and environment of managing projects have huge influence on the outcome of project work, and on how positively the management team experiences the entire process. The author stresses both the need and the opportunities of utilizing innovative environments and techniques to promote effectiveness in project management in SSA. This issue has become more topical by the increasing number of project works and management failures in these countries.

Another concern is that Sub-Sahara Africa needs good two-way flow of public information. This derives from a deeper concern about the lack of effective use of aid monies in SSA. This problem has also been identified in the UNDP Human Development Report (1998) and also announced in the World Bank Development Report (1987, 1999). This author argues that the Internet can be used to provide broader-based feedback essential for the effective use and allocation of aid monies on projects in SSA.

Kouzes and Posner (1987) claim that project management is essentially a problem-solving activity; yet, too often, the less experienced project manager is hindered rather than helped by the rules handed down. Though these authors have highlighted an important problem, this author also believes that an inexperienced project manager is not the only underlying issue. First, there is a need for both the donor organisations and the public to be involved in project works (see Figure 2); and secondly, ignored issues like corruption contribute to project failures. The chapter explores the circumstances and criteria for considering these factors to achieve project success. Major aspects considered include effective management risks, process, and techniques. This chapter also focuses on issues critical to achieving project objectives for socio-economic development, including project manageability; information reliability, and project decision-making. This section of the chapter amplifies these lessons with examples drawn from project management literatures and will appeal particularly to those project managers who have faced the gathering storm and wondered whether to bend or stand firm. Though the chapter is aimed at project management in general, the author is explicitly concerned with projects in the SSA.

Project managers in SSA have the need to improve the effectiveness of their requests and promises, and how team accountability, information openness, and performance are enhanced through the application of guidelines, suggestions, and recommendations. Projects in SSA must face the challenge of change. Aid projects represent the fulfillment of stakeholders' expectations (i.e., the orderly bringing to reality the concept of gratifying aid project objectives). Kouzes and Posner (1987) assert that investing in projects is consequently a strategy for reducing the uncertainty (or risk) in meeting the challenge of project change.

The author agrees with Dingle (1997), who uses the British Standard Guide to Project Management, to define a project as "a unique set of co-ordinated activities, with definite starting and finishing points, undertaken by an individual or organisation to meet specific objectives within defined schedule, cost and performance parameters." In this context, the specification of "performance" includes specification of achieving socio-economic development projects (e.g., health, education, and telecommunication infrastructure systems) in SSA. These "complex" projects, funded and non-funded, are still major problems in these countries as the achievement of completion is rare.

The job of managing a project has been described since early times in terms of organisational skills and capacity for wide-ranging forethought (Yuki, 1981). Project managers have to ensure that their projects are completed within budget and on time. They have to lay plans, anticipate problems, and see that objectives are met even when plans have to be changed. Project managers in SSA lack these disciplines; therefore, several project activities, such as communication and public information flow need to be improved to achieve these skills. If a project is regarded as an interconnected system of activities with predetermined objectives, schedule, and cost; project management is a discipline of conducting the necessary resources for execution of the project within the specifications of schedule, performance, and cost. Because of the lack of project management skills and discipline investments, many aid organisation projects have proven to be fruitless.

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