Assessment of Practices and Challenges of Project Stakeholder Management: Evidence from Mission for Community Development Program (MCDP) Projects, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Abstract

The study assess the  practices  and  challenges  of  stakeholder  management  case  of  Mission  for  Community Development Program  (MCDP) projects.  Censes  was used to  use all stuff members of MCDP organization 30 respondents comprising 1 CEO, 1    Program Manager,  4 Project Managers, 7 Project  Coordinators,  11  Frontline  Project  Staff  and  6  key  resource  persons.  Structured questionnaire was used to get information from CEO, Program Manager and Project Managers, whereas  FGD  questionnaire  was  used  to  provoke  information  from  Project  Coordinators, Frontline  Staff and key resource persons. The study identified donors, beneficiaries, traditional and public authorities and Project Community as generally recognized key stakeholders to the organization. Whereas, Project team, insurance companies, media, sister/line projects, contractors/consultants and financial institutions were also identified as stakeholders but by some of the projects. It was discovered also that the interests and parts of the key Stakeholders were very critical to the effectiveness of the projects. The stakeholder management system was found to be predominantly not institutionalized (separate organizational body).  The study also revealed challenges  like  low  commitment,  conflicting  interests,  personal  benefit  seeking,  ineffective communication,  low  understanding  of  different  issues,  deviation  from  common  agreement, unrealistic  expectations  and  high  cost  of  management  rankly  were  found  to  effect  on  the performance  of  the  projects  in  the  organization.  Finally, it  is  recommend  that  all  stakeholder should be  understand project goals and objectives, ensure strong communication, identify  relevant stakeholders from the project planning, institutionalized stakeholder management and ensure full commitment from all stakeholders.

Keywords: MCDP, Challenges and Practices, Project Stakeholder Management