Projects fail without social impact checks, mentoring — Expert warns
By Magdalene Ukuedojor
A sociologist, Dr Mohammed Abubakar, has harped on the need for effective social impact assessment (SIA) of projects to curb failure, abandonment and unsustainable initiatives across the country.
Abubakar, in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja, said SIA would enable organisations make informed decisions, manage risks, and maximise the positive outcomes of their initiatives.
“SIA is very important in projects because if you want to achieve any project, you need to understudy the projects; you need to understand what are the possible challenges in the project.
“What would be its impact with stakeholders; that’s the people you are doing the project for.
“So, before you start a project, you need to have those knowledge and SIA is a programme from the beginning to the end of the project.
“In fact, after the project you monitor again and see if what you’ve done has impacted the lives of the people or stakeholders living there.
“So that’s the major importance of SIA because it prevents delay in the work.
“You get the knowledge on how to stop delay, you get the knowledge of how this project will be qualitative, you get the knowledge on how people of that area will utilise the project very well.
“This social impact, it can be environmental, it can be social, it can be- all impact assessments can be done using different research methods and others.
“That is why most projects in Nigeria are being abandoned because there’s no proper SIA.
“And if there are, the recommendations of the research or study or SIA results are not followed.
“If they are not followed, definitely you find out that projects are being abandoned because people felt they could finish in one month and it’s about a 12-month project; it has to be abandoned.”
The SIA expert also explained the role of mentoring in enhancing knowledge sharing while also advancing continuation and sustainability of projects.
“Mentoring is very important. If you don’t mentor, there won’t be continuity.
“So, one of the major things is you mentor because you want this thing to be impactful.
“You want the projects to be continuous; you want the projects to be sustained.
“If you don’t mentor, the next person will come and start afresh and this will be abandoned.
“Sometimes in Nigeria, people find it difficult to mentor others because they feel they will rub shoulders with them.
“But mentoring in most developed world is key to every project and that is the only thing that will sustain projects.” (NAN)(www.nannews.ng)