Abstract
Global development projects face persistent performance challenges despite SDGs agenda alignment. A critical paradox exists: limited uptake of sustainability project management (SPM) principles, a gap in theory and practice, undermines mandates to deliver triple-bottom-line benefits across developing and emerging contexts. Through an integrative review bridging global development project management (DPM) with SPM literature, we examine mechanisms for sustainable outcomes. Thematic analysis reveals global development lags other sectors in operationalising sustainability through established processes, lifecycles, and governance. Findings identify systemic DPM frailties and SPM misalignments, advocating complexity-aware thinking beyond traditional time-cost-scope metrics. The review positions the sustainability school as bridging methodological agility with developmental orientation. We propose the SPM-GDI Model – a reconceptualization of development delivery foregrounding strategic alignment with sustainability thinking, requiring contextual recalibration of success conditions around sustainable strategy, leadership, and governance. This study advances SPM discourse by synthesising across literatures to examine DPM through a sustainability lens, beyond delivery-focused parameters, establishing groundwork for empirical validation and a sustainability-oriented DPM research agenda.