THE PRACTICE AND CHALLENGES OF STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT IN URBAN GREENING PROJECTS OF ADDIS ABABA: THE CASE OF SELECTED PARKS

Abstract

Project stakeholder management is among the ten knowledge areas that a project manager must be familiar with for a successful implementation of a project work. Hence, this study aims to assess project stakeholder practice and challenges of urban greening projects of Addis Ababa. The study has examined major issue related to Stakeholder Identification, stakeholder management process, stakeholder management practice and stakeholder management challenges. The research used descriptive research design and a mixed method of qualitative and quantitative approaches to carry out the study. Primary data was collected from a total of thirty four respondents which are selected using census method. The collected data was analyzed with the help of SPSS version 20.0. The qualitative data was presented using descriptive statistics with the help of table, frequency, percentage mean and also standard deviation. Semi-structured interview was also conducted with the 3 project managers, and analyzed qualitatively by integrating secondary data obtained from progress and annual and project feasibility study reports. Accordingly, the findings of the study reveal, the overall stakeholder management practice of the agency can be said satisfactory, which the aggregate mean is 3.05. However, a failure in identification of all stakeholders at early stages of the project, Poor management of stakeholder expectations, and also the absence of well standardized stakeholder management process has been mentioned as a major barriers of effective stakeholder management of the agency. Finally, it is recommended that all stakeholders should understand project goals and objectives, all relevant stakeholders should identify from the project early stages, and need to assign a separate stakeholder management unit with a standardized stakeholder management process in order to realize project success.