United States-based project risk management expert Jessica Beckley has unveiled a strategic risk framework aimed at addressing Nigeria’s persistent challenge of project failure, which continues to undermine development efforts across key sectors.
In a note issued on Tuesday, Beckley stated that Nigeria’s infrastructure and development landscape is riddled with a troubling pattern of abandoned projects, stalled public programmes, and collapsing private sector initiatives. She said all of these reflect chronic underperformance and a failure to manage risks effectively.
“Across Nigeria, a troubling pattern continues to erode progress. Promising infrastructure projects stall midway, public programmes are abandoned before impact is felt, and private sector initiatives collapse under preventable pressures,” she said.
According to Beckley, the crisis of project failure in Nigeria is neither new nor abstract. Rather, it is a deeply human issue with significant consequences for communities, institutions, and economic growth.
“When a project fails, it’s not just a budget that gets lost. It’s trust, livelihoods, and sometimes hope,” she added.
Drawing on over a decade of experience in designing project risk systems, Beckley said her approach moves beyond traditional models that simply document or react to problems after they have occurred.
Instead, her framework introduces real-time, proactive monitoring tools that are embedded directly into everyday project workflows.
“At the heart of these failures often lie familiar culprits: mismanaged risk, poor communication, fragmented leadership, and the absence of a system that can anticipate problems before they spiral out of control,” she noted.
Beckley’s model is already gaining traction in countries like Nigeria, where project execution is often weakened by systemic challenges, resource constraints and inconsistent leadership.
Her strategy focuses on integrating risk detection tools within platforms that teams already use, fostering a culture where early identification of issues is encouraged and rewarded.
“We’ve spent decades perfecting how to document failures. The next decade must focus on preventing them in the first place, not through more processes but through smarter systems,” she said.
She argued that the success of development initiatives should no longer be measured by intentions or paperwork but by the ability to consistently deliver results through smarter planning, stronger execution, and responsive monitoring.
“As Nigeria continues to tackle the vast challenge of turning policy into practice, my frameworks offer more than just technical support; they offer hope that large-scale failure doesn’t have to be the norm,” she concluded.
“Because at the centre of every abandoned site or halted initiative is a community waiting for something to finally work.”
