article · Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies
Highway infrastructure investments across Sub-Saharan Africa frequently face cost overruns, schedule delays, and quality deficits. Converting evaluation findings into actionable project execution decisions can address these challenges, though effectiveness depends on the level of stakeholder participation. An assessment of 69 completed Category-A highway schemes managed by the Kenya National Highways Authority between 2018 and 2022 examined these dynamics using both primary and secondary data. The analysis shows that evaluation results utilisation significantly predicts project performance, accounting for 24.4 percent of the variance in completion time, 29.1 percent in construction quality, and 20.4 percent in cost-effectiveness. Stakeholder engagement acts as a moderating factor in this process, functioning alongside traditional constraints to influence overall infrastructure outcomes in developing economies.
Major road infrastructure programmes in developing economies routinely struggle with delays, overspending, and compromised quality. Demonstrating that the structured adoption of evaluation data combined with active stakeholder engagement measurably reduces these shortfalls offers infrastructure agencies and public funders clear pathways to improve project execution, preserve public capital, and deliver better civic infrastructure.
The findings are directly applicable to national road agencies, public infrastructure authorities, and project management consultancies seeking to improve project governance. While not describing a discrete product, the evidence provides an applied and tested management framework from completed highway projects that can be translated into standardised evaluation protocols, project governance tools, or monitoring guidelines.
AI-generated from the published abstract. Always read the original work before citing.
Despite widespread investment in national highway infrastructure, endemic issues of cost overruns, schedule delays and quality deficits continue to plague the outcomes of projects in Sub-Saharan Africa. It is postulated that evaluation results utilization can be used to overcome these deficits by converting evaluation findings to project decisions that can be executed; although its efficacy may be dependent on the level of stakeholder engagement. This study examines the direct effects of evaluation results utilization and stakeholder engagement on highway project performance as well as the moderating role of stakeholder engagement in the evaluation results utilization–performance relationship. A census-based correlational design was used, which included all 69 completed Category-A highway projects managed by the Kenya National Highways Authority between 2018 and 2022. Both primary and secondary data was used. The findings indicated that evaluation results utilization significantly predicted project performance, accounting for 24.4%, 29.1% and 20.4% of the variance in completion time, quality and cost-effectiveness respectively. Stakeholder engagement has a moderating effect on the evaluation results utilization –performance relationship. This study makes an original theoretical contribution by providing empirical evidence that stakeholder engagement functions as a fourth project constraint within the Triple Constraints framework, moderating the impact of evaluation results utilization on infrastructure performance. The findings offer novel, context-specific guidance for KeNHA and comparable infrastructure agencies in developing economies. Received: 22 June 2026 / Accepted: 31 August 2026 / Published: September 2026
This page summarises published work. The authoritative version sits with the publisher.
DOI: 10.36941/ajis-2026-0142
Is something wrong with this record? Report it or request removal.
Discussion
Have you built on this work, tried to replicate it, or seen it applied in practice? Share what you know. Verified researchers and MARATTO™ domain experts can open a discussion, and any member can reply. Contributions are reviewed before they appear.
No discussion yet. Open the first thread.
New to MARATTO™? Create a free account.
