The Management of Information in Development Projects: A Proposed Model for Enhancing Community Participation in Democracy and Policy Making in Africa.

Coetzee Bester

5 June 2008

Abstract

Politicians in their role as information managers and developers could play an important role in leading communities via agreed expectations towards achievable results, thus becoming real leaders for sustainable democracy. The first section of this article focuses on the need for development in Africa and the specific challenges faced by development operations as the foundation for sustainable democracy in Africa. It describes the need for a holistic and integrated information management model as part of the project management body of knowledge aimed at managing the information flow between communities and development teams. It is argued that information, and access to information, is crucial to development projects and can therefore be seen as a critical success factor in any development project, particularly towards sustainable democracy. The second section describes the three information areas of the holistic and integrated information management model. In the final section we suggest roles and actions for information managers to facilitate information processes integral to the model. These processes seek to create a developing information community that aligns itself with the development project and supports and sustains it.