Rising to the top ten transformative projects in Asia and the Pacific : a stakeholder analysis of the community-based carbon sequestration project in Eastern Iran

Stakeholders are individuals and organizations, permanent or on an ad hoc, who are involved or affected by the project's execution or completion. Projects involve various primary and secondary stakeholders with different opinions, objectives and contributions. For any project's success, the interest of the project stakeholders must be understood. This paper describes and analyses a community-based project selected globally as one of the top 10 developmental projects in Asia and the Pacific in 2016. A diverse range of stakeholders has been involved in this project, and their roles, strengths, and weaknesses, especially from the managerial viewpoints, will be discussed. The best outcomes resulted from the Village Development Groups that could gather local communities from all age and gender groups among stakeholders. We also address the project shortcomings that have hindered the project capacities, namely the project document, the distance between the field and headquarter, and the lack of financial and climatic risk assessment. In community-based projects, the earlier establishment of managerial stakeholders is pivotal for streamlining the project and introducing it to the local people. Reliance on the local experiences and communities ensures the success of these projects, while repudiating such potentials may lead to the breakdown of a project's objectives and achievements in the long term. The linkages or mismatches between national and international administrative and financial modalities must be considered carefully for international projects.