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.

The process of cost modeling using risk analysis for construction projects is very crucial for the achievement of project success. The purpose of this paper is to present an analysis of the financial impact of risk factors affecting key construction work sections; using a systematic risk methodology based on empirical judgment. The failure mode effect analysis (FMEA) and the evidential reasoning methods are presented as qualitative and quantitative risk tools respectively. Data analysis from structured questionnaires revealed that four work sections are prone to high scope changes contemporaneous with seven risk factors. Contrary to the usual 10% contingency estimate allowed for construction projects in Ghana, an approximate overall physical contingency range of between 13.36% and 17.88% was determined using evidential reasoning methods. The likely impact of the integrated work sections and risk factors provide a clue to estimators on how to estimate and account for project cost contingency. The research concludes by recommending a framework for improving the estimation process of cost contingency through the integration of efficient risk management strategies, cost estimation and design management process.

Delay to large scale projects, which is as a result of actions or inactions of some project stakeholders, is becoming a global phenomena and Ghana is no exception. The objective of the research is to identify, rate and rank the most significant risk factors that causes delay on projects and examine the social impact of these delays to recommend modalities to help mitigate these risk factors. The study adopted quantitative methods with the distribution of 144 questionnaires to built environment professionals receiving a response rate of 75.7%. The instrument listed 58 common factors under eight categories that contribute to the causes of delay for respondents to rate. Analysis of data non-parametric test revealed that client, contractor, material and finance category factors significantly resulted in the schedule delay of large infrastructural projects. The survey analysis revealed that micro-factors that result in delays to large construction projects are time constraint, cost overrun, payment problems, dispute and litigation. The research recommended the following modalities to minimize such delays: availability of resources, improved communication and coordination, proper scope definition and feasibilities, utilization of modern technology, appropriate application of technologically based systems and competent project management's structures.

Procurement is a very important aspect of the chain link process of infrastructural delivery. Through procurement choices in terms of project delivery and construction technology is agreed by key stakeholders. Irrespective of the concomitant challenges of the traditional Design Bid Build (DBB) method of project delivery commonly employed in Ghana, which has been noted for schedule delay, corruption, cost overrun and low quality; project stakeholders still employ this method in the delivery of over 90% of infrastructural project. The purpose of this review is to advance the reasons for the continuous use of the traditional method of procurement, factors hindering the adoption of other procurement methods and explore the possibility of stakeholders embracing other producer-led procurements. As a qualitative based study, the work was based on extensive desktop literature review from journal, periodicals, articles and previous related works. Findings from the study pointed out that the use of the DBB was basically due to familiarity by stakeholders, the small scale of projects executed in Ghana, the competence and capacity characteristics of the local contractor and the form of contract used in the delivery of construction projects. The study concludes that the construction industry in Ghana is not fully ready for a switch to producer-led system as an alternative to DBB since less than 10% of local contractors have the capacity. Again, most of the high profile firms ready for the adoption of DB are foreign-based firms; a switch would disadvantage the local contractor who lacks the necessary capacity. In conclusion, the Ghanaian contractor needs to build capacity in terms of human and technical skills to help position on the right pedestal.

The process of decision making and risk analysis are essential tasks along the construction project cycle. Over the years, construction practitioners and researchers have used various methods, tools and techniques to evaluate risk and assist in making more concise decisions. Most practitioners, however, rely on their expert judgment, past experience, intuition, acquired and accumulated knowledge and gut feelings to make decisions. Aleatory (natural, heterogeneity and stochasticity) and epistemic (subjective, ignorance) are the two major types of uncertainties observed in natural sciences. Practitioners traditionally deal with aleatory uncertainty through probabilistic analysis based on historical data (frequentist approach); and epistemic uncertainty, on the other hand, handled through the Bayesian approach which has limitations since it requires a priori assumption. This paper reports the application of the DST (Dempster Shafer Theory) of evidence to determine the most critical risk factors affecting project cost contingencies using their epistemic probabilities of occurrence. The paper further discuses how these factors can be managed to enhance successful delivery of infrastructural projects. It uses the mixed methodology, with data gathered through structured questionnaires distributed to construction clients, contractors, professionals and experts in the built environment. The research revealed that design risk, financial risk and economic risk were most important cost risk categorizations. In particular, scope changes, incomplete scope definition, incomplete design, changes in specification, micro and macroeconomic indicators and delayed payment problems were identified as the most important risk factors to be considered during the cost contingency estimation process, hence successful delivery of infrastructural projects. The paper concludes by recommending modalities for managing the contingency evolution process of risk estimation to enhance successful delivery and management of infrastructural projects.