Your Cart

• Log in

• Related Products
• Parent
  • • International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences
• Associated
  • • The Marketing of Legal but Potentially Harmful Products and Corporate Social Responsibility
  • • Investigating the Role of Australian Business in Alleviating Poverty in the Asia Pacific Region
  • • Global Economic Difficulties
  • • HIV Infection, Reproduction and Parenting
  • • An Analysis of Management Functions in the Informal Sector in South Africa
  • • Corporate Social Responsibility in Romanian SMEs
  • • A Review of the Sustainability of Development Projects
  • • Elements in Transitional Space
  • • Homer’s Thamyris
  • • Contemporary Programs and Strategies of Cultural Policies
  • More →

A Review of the Sustainability of Development Projects

By Maria de Jesus Marquez Dorantes.

Published by The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

In a framework of sustainable development (SD), theoretical perspectives, criteria, methods and techniques are helpful in not only identifying the state of affairs and setting targets, but also to assess the sustainability of the means used to achieve these targets. Development projects are some of these means, involving different actors (governmental, private, civil) at multiple levels (international, national, regional, local). The analysis shows how the traditional methods used in the assessment of projects and policies, cost-benefit analysis and multi-criteria analysis, have been extended to the assessment of environmental criteria in projects, while Environmental Impact Assessment has been developed to focus on environmental impacts of development projects. Though some disciplines provide insights of criteria to be included within a SD framework, the analysis reveals that economics and management prevail as the dominant disciplines in the appraisal of environmental concerns within development projects, imposing their dominant view of SD: weak sustainability. Despite the aim of achieving objectivity in project appraisal, the limitations of these methods leave space for decision-makers’ subjectivity. Proposals from other disciplines may fill this gap, particularly, through stakeholder participation.

International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences, Volume 4, Issue 2, pp.99-114. Article: Print (Spiral Bound). Article: Electronic (PDF File; 1.206MB).

Maria de Jesus Marquez Dorantes

Postgraduate Research Student, School of Development Studies, University of East Anglia, Norwich, Norfolk, UK