UNE ANALYSE DE LA PERCEPTION DES COORDONNATEURS DE PROJETS DE DÉVELOPPEMENT EN AFRIQUE

Success factors and success criteria on which projects are evaluated have been discussed widely in literature. The perception of coordinators of international development projects has not been examined thus far, especially in Africa. This paper characterizes the dimensions of success (and their hierarchy) for such projects as perceived by African project coordinators using data collected by questionnaires completed by project coordinators of aid and development projects in Africa south of the Sahara. Our research also determines, from the perspective of the project coordinators, the hierarchy of the dimensions of the principal stakeholders (task managers in the international aid agencies, local officials, project team, steering committee, beneficiaries, etc.). The results confirm the importance of classical dimensions (time, cost, quality) but paradoxically the impact of the projects is rated in last position for the coordinator. The role played by implicit dimensions related to the political environment of the international development community features prominently in the perception of the successfulness of the project, as the project coordinator must satisfy more than one "client" in such projects financed by multilateral institutions.