Participation is now an international agenda for ensuring full representation of people in terms of their ideas, feeling and decision on matters concerning their development. It has been observed that most projects fail after implementation not due to poor execution but rather due poor stakeholder consultation and engagement. The purpose of this study was to determine the barriers to stakeholder involvement in developmental projects at the grassroots level and examine the impact of stakeholder involvement on the success of projects implemented. Data was gathered through structured questionnaires distributed to ordinary citizens, community leaders and local authority staff in selected district assemblies in Ghana. Analysis of structured questionnaires revealed that there was inadequate explanation of the background, technical and material justification for the project to the stakeholders prior to project initiation. Stakeholders held that they had difficulty in participating in technical discussions and there was the perceived unwillingness of project implementers to involve them during decision making, to this end, the impact of stakeholders towards project success was significant. To overcome the challenge of stakeholder involvement and meaningful impact to projects, stakeholders must develop capacities to contribute meaningfully in discussions or delegate their concerns to professional representatives. To this end, projects implementers must acknowledge the value of stakeholders and embark on stakeholder outreach to solicit their involvement for enhanced project success.

No abstract