International Development Projects (IDPs) are plagued with failure although they have become and will remain an important instrument of activating and achieving development in developing countries. They are failing at an astonishing rate, despite genuine management efforts. This paper looks into IDP failure using three real-world classic examples of failed IDPs and confirms a marked consistency in factors that cause failure of both IDPs and conventional projects. It identifies and describes some common factors for IDP failure with a view to understanding them so as to reduce the rate of their failure. The paper introduces new stimulating research ideas and provides a platform for the incremental accumulation of future research on IDPs. Findings will benefit project professionals, especially IDP professionals, development-oriented organisations and the International Development Body of Knowledge.

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Significant as they are to activating development and addressing some of the most difficult and entrenched problems in developing economies, development assistance projects operate under challenging and rather erratic conditions. Consequently, majority of the challenges and problems that confront them are difficult to anticipate and solve a priori and must be engaged dynamically as and when they arise. Today, with a momentous blend of volatilities, uncertainties, complexities and ambiguities characterizing the environment of developing economies to hasten profound managerial challenges, functional management control, which is critical to identifying and addressing problems and deviations to enable improved performance outcomes, has eluded development assistance projects. This has modeled poor management control into one of its greatest threats to implementation. Grounded in experience from development practice, this position paper moots that poor management control aid double whammies of today's development assistance projects. Further, it reflects why bureaucracies, understaffing, weak supervision and cultural insensitivity in the conduct of such projects are responsible for this threat and discusses how it could be contained for improved performance outcomes. It concludes with highlights on implications for research and practice.