Stakeholder management an imperative to successful project delivery: evidence from privately financed market projects in Nigeria

Construction works procured using public private partnership arrangement (PPPs) are more risk prone than those procured using other forms, primarily due to the lengthy concession period and the multi-parties involved in the arrangement. There are differing types of stakeholders associated with PPP projects that in turn have multiple and often conflicting goals or needs. Successful project managers therefore need not only to realise that project success criteria relates to the client (i.e. iron triangle, cost, time and quality), but they also need to understand the needs and priorities of the different types of project stakeholders. This paper focuses on stakeholder management in the context of PPP market projects in a developing economy. Projects, large or small, have knock on effects on local communities and economies. The study elaborates on how stakeholders on those projects have been managed. However, from two different case studies presented in the paper, it was revealed that whereas on one of the projects stakeholders were effectively managed, this was not the case on the second project. Poor management of stakeholders on the second case study explain the poor performance on the project and the failure to satisfy the end users. The study establishes that failure to understand the needs of all other stakeholders to a project and their priorities leads to project failure. Thus, it is concluded that for successful implementation of PPP projects in a developing economy, especially in a market development that has both cultural and socio-economic impact on the people, adequate consideration should be given to the needs of all the stakeholders. The findings of the study should be useful to PPP promoters in market projects in devising possible ways of managing the different stakeholders involved in privately financed markets.