and socio-economic development programme
in a Third World community
CASE STUDY
By O. Chima Okereke, PhD
Herefordshire, UK
Introduction
The names of the community, the country where it is located, and even the continent have been withheld because disclosing them will not add value to the paper. Moreover, the overriding objective is to garner some lessons from the programme and not to publicise the failures of governments to their communities.
The topics to be covered include the following:
- Description of the pre-programme state of the infrastructure in the community
- Creation of a development team charged with the responsibility for the community development
- Problems resolution by the application of programme management
- Current situation and sustainability
- Takeaway lessons from our experience.
Description of the pre-programme state of the infrastructure in the community
The conditions of the various infrastructure and the socio-economic parameters and systems, when the programme was launched in June 2020, were as follows:
- There was widespread unemployment among adults and the youths. Many qualified persons had no jobs.
- There was a palpable hunger in the village as the food production methods were manual and rudimentary. There were no food production cottage industries to provide food and jobs.
- Organised entrepreneurial education for unemployed persons, especially youths, was minimal, and skills acquisition in Information Technology was not in existence.
- Water supply was in a poor and dangerous condition. The supply scheme installed by a government organisation over eleven years ago was a failed system. Since it was commissioned, no comprehensive maintenance was carried out on the three artesian wells and the whole water system. What was worse, there was a backflow from the overflow of the wells that was damaging the well head and the adjoining area creating a non-stop environmental degradation for many years. It was a case of an environmental damage that was worsening every day.
- Grid electricity supply was drastically inadequate as it was only available, in some cases, for about two to three hours a day in about three days in the week.
- Security system was poorly organised since there were no security persons on guard duties always to conduct regular security checks in the village.
Creation of a management team charged with the responsibility of the community development
- In June 2020, seventeen international professionals were appointed and charged, by means of terms of reference, with the responsibilities of identifying and developing opportunities that should enhance the general wellbeing of the people. These professionals constituted the programme management team. The focus areas were food production, employment, training and empowerment of youths, environment, development of infrastructures, entrepreneurships, culture/traditions, etc.
- The vision was to create a sustainable urban community in the village in the next five years
- The desired strategic goals could be summarised as sustainable developments in education, socio-economy, infrastructure such as water supply, electricity supply, computer business centres for email and office applications, cottage industries for food production, service industries, environment, etc.
Problems Resolution by Application of Programme Management
Programme management is the process that allows organisations to manage multiple, related projects concurrently to obtain significant benefits from them as a group more than could be obtained if the projects are managed separately. It concentrates on delivering the following:
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How to cite this article: Okereke, O.C. (2021). Challenges of an infrastructural reactivation and socio-economic development programme in a Third World community, case study, PM World Journal, Vol. X, Issue XII, December. Available online at https://pmworldlibrary.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/pmwj112-Dec2021-Okereke-challenges-of-programme-in-third-world-community-case-study.pdf
About the Author
O. Chima Okereke, PhD, PMP
Herefordshire, UK
Dr. O. Chima Okereke, Ph.D., MBA, PMP is the Managing Director and CEO of Total Technology Consultants, Ltd., a project management consulting company working in West Africa and the UK. He is a visiting professor, an industrial educator, a multidisciplinary project management professional, with over 25 years’ experience in oil and gas, steel and power generation industries. For example, On December 26th 2013, he completed an assignment as a visiting professor in project management; teaching a class of students on Master’s degree in project management in the Far Eastern Federal University, Vladivostok, Russia. In August and September 2013, he conducted an innovative, and personally developed training programme for seventy six well engineers of Shell Nigeria to enhance the efficiency of their operations using project and operations management processes.
Before embarking on a career in consulting, he worked for thirteen years in industry rising to the position of a chief engineer with specialisation in industrial controls and instrumentation, electronics, electrical engineering and automation. During those 13 years, he worked on every aspect of projects of new industrial plants including design, construction and installation, commissioning, and engineering operation and maintenance in process industries. Chima sponsored and founded the potential chapter of the Project Management Institute (PMI®) in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, acting as president from 2004 to 2010.
Dr. Okereke has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Lagos, and a PhD and Masters in Business Administration (MBA) degree from the University of Bradford in the UK. He also has a PMP® certification from the Project Management Institute (PMI®) which he passed at first attempt. He has been a registered engineer with COREN in Nigeria since 1983. For many years, Total Technology has been a partner for Oracle Primavera Global Business Unit, a representative in Nigeria of Oracle University for training in Primavera project management courses, and a Gold Level member of Oracle Partner Network (OPN. He is a registered consultant with several UN agencies. More information can be found at http://www.totaltechnologyconsultants.org/
Chima is the publisher of Project Management Business Digest, a blog aimed at helping organizations use project management for business success. Dr. Okereke is also an international editorial advisor for the PM World Journal. He can be contacted at chima.okereke@totaltechnologyconsultants.com or info@totaltechnologyconsultants.org
To view other works by Dr. O. Chima Okereke, visit his author showcase in the PM World Library at https://pmworldlibrary.net/authors/dr-o-chima-okereke/
