Project Management and Community Participation within Small Island States: An Examination of Stakeholder Engagement in Belize in an Era of the Sustainable Development Goals

Abstract

This paper seeks to understand how Local Community Development and Conservation Organisations manage their relationship with their key stakeholders, which in the context of our paper are the donors, local partner communities and the government. The study ascertains how organisations pursue the quest to achieve their goals/mission, in an era of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by using the stakeholder accountability framework. The paper further examines how Local NGOs manage the relationship between such missions and project implementation and whether they reflect stakeholder needs and expectation. The authors use qualitative methodologies involving interviews, focus group discussions/meetings and participants’ observations to address the research objectives and questions. The study observes some (dis)connection between community participation in projects that are being implemented, organisational goals and local needs. The study further reveals that there is a potential disconnect between organisation mission and the pursuit of participatory sustainable development. The study underscores the fact that effective stakeholder participation is critical for achieving local sustainable development targets. The authors conclude that upward accountability to donors and governments seems to be a stronger incentive for Local NGOs compared to downward accountability. We argue that such patterns must to be addressed to ensure the attainment of the critical local targets of the Sustainable Development Goals. The paper recommends the need to formalise both downward and inward accountability mechanisms in order to ensure that community development values are being integrated into project implementation that are aimed at addressing local development needs.