Outcomes

The participants were asked to identify meaningful outcomes from the inclusion of sustainability in project management of large-scale projects. The themes identified were upliftment of local communities by way of infrastructure, meaningful skills and local business growth. Attributes that improved project performance were also identified as meaningful outcomes indicating an economic benefit of the inclusion of sustainability in project management.

5.6.1.1 Local Upliftment

In identifying meaningful outcomes from the inclusion of sustainability into project management, PMs emphasised skills upliftment.

PM04: "…you want to be able to show up-skill... and we had so many examples, if that person has arrived as a cleaner and has left as a clerk. If a guy has arrived as a semi-skilled labor and left as an artisan, perhaps, or he's come in as a general worker and left as a supervisor. I think that's a fantastic outcome."

This was not emphasised as strongly by PCs and appears to be from the difference in their respective focuses. PMs are largely project-focused whereas the PM focus spans the product lifecycle. This perhaps indicates that skills upliftment may not be an appropriate measure as skills gained during a project do not necessarily translate to employment after it.

Categories Themes

RQ4

What are the meaningful outcomes for inclusion of sustainability in project management and how is project management of large-scale projects in Africa

changing?

Outcomes

Local Upliftment

Corporate Conscience and

Performance

Trends

Sustainability Beyond Compliance

Organisational Shift

Some PMs identified maximised local employment during the project as a positive outcome for social sustainability. PMs also mentioned the employment transfer of locals from the project to the mine operations as a positive outcome. However, these were not prevalent views from PCs.

Both PMs and PCs identified post project employment of locals outside of the mining environment as a positive outcome for project sustainability as highlighted by PM09.

PM09: "I want 5,000 jobs in the community, which is non-mining related.

When my mine go, these guys can still have jobs. So people must not create the mine to create jobs on a mine, [we] need to create jobs in a community."

PC03 also highlights this as an important outcome, however, there is an emphasis on developing appropriate skills to enable this to happen.

PC03: "…we had a couple of scholarship programs in schools and so on to actually get people and sponsor them through university, that type of thing, so we were trying to develop the skill base on a local level… these are portable skills, so people can take them when the mine has closed up as well.

Local business growth is emphasised by both PMs and PCs as being an important sustainable outcome for projects as highlighted by PM07 and PC04. Which supports PC03's emphasis on portable skills that can be used outside of the mining environment.

PM07: "…more positive [outcomes] are with just sustainable businesses created through the project itself being created. Creating working opportunities for others in the areas and identifying real growth in the local entities that you develop there."

PC04: "…if you can have meaningful skills transfers, during that project we skill up the people and create sustainable businesses that can continue to deliver service in the area."

This appeared to be a preference with PCs who identified that the prominence of local business in the area created a symbiotic relationship that allowed the PC to rely on local services.

Local infrastructure improvement was identified by both PMs and PCs as a positive

outcome for project sustainability. It was identified that though infrastructure improvements, conditions for local business growth would be aided.

PM09: "…to do that you must put money in infrastructure and I want people to do business."

The infrastructure improvements identified were by way of clean water supply, electricity and education facilities.

PM02: "…if you provide them with drinking water that, let's just say clears up the wife and the family's day significantly because now she doesn't have to spend three hours trying to get clean water for the family. Now she can go and pick it up at a central spot. That made a big impact in their lives."

PM05: "In terms of power; if you can move power around during the time that it's not really required, into local communities, that's obviously a good start there. I think there're good outcomes."

PM07: "…setting up a training center for helping people from the local community that's currently been through schooling but struggling to get to the point where they are employable. That could be anything from math classes to computer literacy stuff that they need to upskill them, just to get to a point where they become more marketable in an open labor market."

A significant point of the respondents indicated the more desirable outcomes were in areas that did not depend on the project or the mine, both of which have finite lives.

To summarise this section, participants agreed that local upliftment was a meaningful outcome for the inclusion of sustainability in their projects. This was represented by imparting appropriate skills to locals which would initially maximise employment during the project, but more significantly allow them to use those skills elsewhere and lessen their dependence on the project and the mine. Participants also identified local business growth as a meaningful outcome through nurturing their creation and sustenance. Finally, infrastructure improvement was seen to be a key outcome that would support growth of local economy.

5.6.1.2 Corporate Conscience and Performance

Many of the meaningful outcomes identified were in aid of improved project

performance. The most significant of these was a lack of industrial action/project stoppage, particularly from social unrest, through community support.

PM01: "A project I guess would be socially successful in mind first if you were able to stay clear of any industrial action. Because that basically tells you that the workforce were happy and you kept the local community happy in terms of how you acted with them during the project."

PC01: "Well, on one level, have we had any sort of social environmental incidents that has threatened the construction and operation of the project?

To date we've had no, we've had none."

Key to achieving this was community engagement. Especially in areas of conflict where local stakeholder support was identified as a necessity for the project for its ability to prevent exposure to conflict.

PM02: "…you don't build a mine in a war torn region that doesn't have any, I suppose governing law, by not engaging with the community. And the rebels operate in that region quite successfully because of the inaccessibility… You can't fight that fight. It's impossible to police so how do you operate in a region like that? You involve the community. You get on their good side… You get them involved in what you're doing. You get buy- in and you share the wealth. "Now all of a sudden these foreigners have arrived and now we all got jobs and we all have food and we've now, for the first time, getting a bit of an education"."

This support translated into other meaningful outcomes such a happy and productive workforce.

PM02: "The outcome is you've got a happy workforce. You've got a productive labor force."

Whilst most actors acknowledged that the environment it invariably damaged in some way through the creation of the mines, they identified that environmental compliance and mitigation of damage and potential harm to local communities was a meaningful outcome for the inclusion of sustainability practice. To a large extent, this is achieved through sound design practices.

PM05: "…comply with the environmental requirements, to make sure the environmental impact is reduced"

PC01: "…successfully mitigated the risks are social environmental risks"

By reducing exposure to the adverse consequences of not having appropriately integrated sustainability into project management, both actors identified the positive outcome of this was an avoidance of bad publicity. This was recognised to provide a competitive advantage by both PMs and PCs.

PM09: "…a differentiator for it to give us a competitive advantage"

PC03: "I see all of these things actually as huge opportunities, because if you get this right it's a massive competitive advantage"

PMs and PCs highlighted that having a clear conscience of having carried out their activities in a responsible manner, was a meaningful outcome.

PM11: "…feeling good about what you're doing is part of what we do… about a wholistic view of what you've put in the middle of the DRC and being proud about it, and really thinking that this client isn't just raping the environment and abusing the local community, they're actually uplifting them and they're doing some of the right things. Makes you feel good about it."

PC06: "…you've actually got to hand on heart, be able to walk away and say, "I did my best, and I've left something behind for everybody."

The value of conscience is noted to be more than an internalised attribute and potentially provides value in engaging with stakeholders. PC03 recounted this in recollection of an engagement with a government stakeholder regarding the restriction of illegal mining activity on a project site.

PC03: "I'm talking about illegal mining… These are people who are coming on to a mining license, or a tenement that they have no right to be on… So you go to the Minister and you talk it through, he understands it, and he'll make sure that the right decisions get made. But the one point that he made to me was that he actually didn't worry about us as an operator, because he knew that we had a conscience. The problem he had was with the artisanal miners who don't care what they do to the environment."

In summary, the participants identified a lack of project delays from social unrest as a significant measure of the success. The spin-off of this was a more content and productive workforce. On the environmental side they pointed to a mitigation of environmental risks which prevented exposure to bad publicity. A measure of these outcomes was improved organisational performance. A personal and organisational outcome for the participants was having a clear conscience of having achieved these outcomes.