3.1  What is risk?

'Risk is the chance of an event occurring which would cause actual project circumstances to differ from those assumed when forecasting project benefit and costs.' 2 Because management of risks holds the key to the success or failure of a project, 'projects are about risks, about their evaluation and their subsequent acceptance or avoidance'.3




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2  Chris Furnell, Risk identification and risk allocation in project finance transactions, paper presented
at the Faculty of Law, The University of Melbourne, May 2000, p. 1.

3  Allen & Overy, from Furnell, ibid., p. 8.