Stakeholder Management and The Performance of Feed the Future agricultural-Inputs Project in Mbale District

Abstract

Today’s development projects are implemented in institutionally demanding environments and jointly executed by coalitions of stakeholders that have differing interests, objectives and socio-cultural backgrounds. Consequently, development projects are subject to the demands and pressures presented by external stakeholders such as community groups, local residents, environmentalists, regulatory agencies, and local and national governments. Despite the acknowledged importance of stakeholder management, project research still lacks both theoretical knowledge and empirical evidence concerning various project stakeholder related phenomena. The objective of this research was to examine the relationship between stakeholder management and the performance of Feed the Future AGRICULTURAL INPUTS project. In addition, contribute to project research by increasing the understanding of external project stakeholder behavior and a focal project’s stakeholder management activities in development projects. The primary theoretical perspective used in this research is stakeholder theory and the public participation theory, which was applied in the context of stakeholder management and project performance. A descriptive cross-sectional research design was used. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used for primary and secondary data in form of interviews, questionnaires and documentary review. The findings of the study were that the stakeholder management variables of identification, dialogue and involvement have a positive relationship with performance of the project. Though they all present a fairly weak significance, notable and traceable variations are most likely attributed to strategies used by the project and thus require review and attention on amplification or revision. Recommendations to the study include the need to fully study the organization primary stakeholders and understand their needs and capacities for effective participation, stakeholder dialogue should not just be manipulation, informing, or consultation, but true dialogue and communication should involve partnership, delegated power and citizen control and there is need to fully involve stakeholders in reviewing project progress so that a combined understanding of the outcomes are owned by all stakeholder hence better performance and eventual sustainability.