A stakeholder is an individual, group, or organization who may affect, be affected by, or perceive it’s self to be affected by a decision, activity, or outcome of a project (PMI, 2013; Freeman 1984). Stakeholder theory has become so popular especially in livelihood projects aimed at empowering the less privileged (Savage et al., 1991; Nalweyiso et al., 2015). Health Projects have various stakeholders whose expectations are diverse in nature and therefore the management of these project stakeholders is an issue of concern. Stakeholder theory thus holds that when those who have a stake in the projects take part in shaping decisions through participation, their interests are likely to be addressed (Vermoolen, and Hermans, 2015).
This leads to perceived success of the project by the different stakeholders in terms of service delivery and the quality of service. This argument is underpinned by the normative and descriptive form of stakeholder theory as propounded by Donaldson and Preston (1995) and further supported by Phillips (2003). It thus seeks to define the specific stakeholders of the project (the normative form of stakeholder theory), and then examines the conditions under which managers treat these parties as stakeholders (the descriptive form).