Stakeholder agency in humanitarian projects addressing forced displacement

Purpose Humanitarian projects address critical global issues such as poverty, climate change and forced displacement. However, research reveals that many such projects yield limited results when managed through a top-bottom approach. In this research, we investigate how the agency of stakeholders (i.e. the project beneficiaries) can be useful in aligning such projects to local needs for a bottom-top successful outcomes. Design/methodology/approach Expanding on agency theory as conceptualised in sociology and humanitarian contexts, we relied on a participatory action research approach based on the development and implementation of a humanitarian project in a forced displacement context. Findings The findings show that beneficiaries’ agency is experientially sedimented, negotiated in practice and structurally consequential. The iterative dimension of agency draws on beneficiaries’ life experiences, educational and occupational backgrounds, and displacement trajectories. The practical–evaluative dimension emerges through situated judgments shaped by shared project norms, social positioning and perceived autonomy. The projective dimension of agency is aspirational and links short-term survival goals with longer-term aspirations for stability. The interaction of these dimensions influences the project’s moral, pragmatic and procedural legitimacy, with beneficiary agency playing a critical role in sustaining or contesting project acceptance. Practical implications For project managers involved in humanitarian projects, the article points to the importance of recognising and involving beneficiaries as active agents whose experiences, present evaluations and future aspirations shape project legitimacy. In forced displacement humanitarian project contexts, project managers should create relational and institutional conditions that enable constructive agency enactment to ensure that the project fits the beneficiaries’ lived realities and long-term aspirations. Originality/value The study offers an empirically grounded account of beneficiary agency enactment in forced displacement humanitarian projects and demonstrates how such agency constitutes a central mechanism through which project legitimacy is constructed, maintained or undermined.