Ethiopia is one of the countries undergoing a rapid economic growth. Its economy is also on a transition stage. Hence, the transition deems necessary the execution of many infrastructure and facilities. For example the country needs more roads, schools, hospitals, houses, factories etc.
In order to achieve all these successfully it needs to apply effective mechanism of executing projects.
Projects by their very nature require special attention skill and experience among others as they are bound in terms of time and finance, among others.
For example, if the project fails to be completed in time, it is going to incur more finance.
This means it is causing loss to the economy and also delay in the pace of the country’s economic development.
Study by Ministry of Finance and Economic Cooperation shows that Ethiopia has lost about 43 billion USD due to failure in execution of projects. Currently, the country is executing thousands of projects aimed at helping the transition.
The delay as well as failure to meet standard has incurred loss in the economy. Hence, due attention should be given to the issue of projects. All the necessary trainings, policy and specialization should be given to it.
Actually the factors that influence the success of projects are not unique to Ethiopia. At least in all developing countries appropriate project planning, human resource, corruption etc are serious challenges to effectively accomplishing development projects.
Therefore, the government and stakeholders have to give due attention to the issue of adapting appropriate technique and methodology of project management that can work well to the situation of the country. It is important to adapt experiences of countries with best practices.
Since project needs human resources that are well versed in project implementation the government should give due attention to education and training of human resource that specialize in the field. With the rapid development of higher education sector n the country there s a good enabling situation to harness the available trainable work force.
Just as many developing countries, Ethiopia has also suffered a lot from corruption. Despite the unreserved efforts to tackle the problem, corruption has affected many of the public sector and development endeavor in the country. When it comes to the implementation of projects too, it is going to have even worse impact since projects are sensitive to time and standard. Therefore, government should further uphold anti corruption struggle in the country.
The future also requires the country to equip itself with rich capacity of implementing projects. This is because the country’s effectiveness in successfully achieving projects affects not only the local financial sources but also the country’s reputation among stakeholders who provide funding for its development projects.
Furthermore, it is also important to have transparency so that people can also play a role in monitoring and evaluation.
The Ethiopian Herald February 23/2019
