Regional update

Representing the industry all around the world

FIDIC’s global efforts are assisted by the activities of a number of regional groupings or organisations with which FIDIC works and collaborates closely to ensure that the consulting engineering industry is well represented in every corner of the globe. The regional updates below highlight some of the key activities and developments that have taken place over the past year in the North America, Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia-Pacific regions.

Africa update

President of FIDIC Africa, Abe Thela, gives an update on the latest activities of the organisation which represents FIDIC member associations across the African continent.

The opportunity to host FIDIC Africa’s first in-person post-Covid infrastructure conference in Lagos, Nigeria, was a memorable event after two years of exclusively online engagements with member associations (MAs) across the region. The conference was delivered by ACEN and attended by FIDIC CEO Dr Nelson Ogunshakin. Notwithstanding the fact that we will most likely find ourselves mostly communicating through online meetings, it is our intention to increase the frequency of these, via MA presidents’ meetings and also online committee meetings led by the executive committee members serving as chairs of their respective areas of activity.

To date, our administrative and communications support through the secretariat has grown from strength to strength and we have enjoyed the support of FIDIC in using the Teams platform for all meetings. Furthermore, we are in the final stages of establishing South Africa as the future permanent location for the FIDIC Africa secretariat and all operational functionality is being put in place to ensure continuity. We must be doing something right in that we now have as many as two people from our region on the FIDIC board!

We have now also embarked on a process of resuscitating our Future Leaders Committee, which unfortunately had become dysfunctional over the last year, but there is no doubt that they too will resume their place in the FIDIC Future Leaders council. We continue to pursue growth in membership, however, attracting the more Francophone countries to join our ranks has proven to be a challenge, but we believe that with more support from FIDIC - and specifically our counterpart MA in France - we would have more success in doing so. model is being used to inform the further development of other regional bodies, such as ASIA-Pacific. Furthermore, we are in the process of strengthening the recognition of FIDIC Africa at not only a commercial level with multilateral development banks in keeping with the recognition enjoyed by FIDIC, but we are also working on such relationships at an African Union level, so that governments in our region embrace the MAs in their countries as trusted advisors in their efforts towards developing sustainable infrastructure.

Our region desperately needs such infrastructure for economic development and, equally importantly, needs the partnership between investor countries, their engineering companies and those of the host countries, if we are to ensure that there is a healthy level of sustainable engineering skills developed at local levels, not only for the operation and maintenance of such infrastructure but also for future capital investment.

The Africa region has the human capital with the requisite qualifications, what we need now is the development of the appropriate skills and competencies to support the efforts of our respective governments to grow our economies, eradicate corruption and develop a region dependent on trade and not aid.

Update from Pan-America

President of FEPAC, Henrique de Aragão, gives his update on the latest activities of the organisation which represents FIDIC member associations across Pan-America.

In March 2022, FEPAC celebrated 50 continuous years of operation, with a conference and general assembly organised for the occasion in Lima, Peru.

The conference, Future of Engineering Consulting in the World, was held on 25 March, with a select panel of international experts who spoke and reflected in open dialogue with the audience. Importantly, the participation of authorities, ambassadors of the member countries of FEPAC and various players from the world of engineering, allowed the event to deal with key agendas and disseminate plans and best practices in FEPAC. In particular, there were discussions around the participation of member companies on the future infrastructure projects which are most needed for the progress of the region. Some of the highlights of the conference included: - • A keynote from a World Bank representative on the importance of selecting engineering consulting using technical criteria rather than price; • A keynote from the

Inter-American Development

Bank on the road to a better infrastructure in Latin America and the Caribbean; • Around 20 presentations that contributed to the achievement of the objectives and success of the event, addressing several topics, including BIM

Forum and the FIDIC Future

Leaders Advisory Council; • Signing of a technical cooperation agreement with the Latin American Association of Financial Institutions for

Development; • Discussion of a collaboration agreement with the WWF, the

World Wildlife Fund for Nature; • Key interest from Autodesk on their participation and collaboration with FEPAC on future events; • FEPAC’s 50th Anniversary

Awards, in recognition of the

successes and achievements of MA member companies; • Launch of the Glossary of

Technical Terms, a book that seeks to standardise expressions in bids and contracts in the region.

The edition of a FEPAC 50th anniversary commemorative book allowed us to remember the efforts of engineering consulting firms in the construction of infrastructure and outstanding ventures in the region.

Another important event also deserves mention and that is that from 22-24 June the third meeting of the FEPAC executive committee was held in the City of San José, Costa Rica, during the first Pan-American seminar on Consulting in Architecture and Engineering, organised by the Chamber of Consultants in Architecture and Engineering of Costa Rica.

Looking ahead to future months, the fourth meeting of the FEPAC executive committee will be held on 27-28 November in Honduras, where we will also hold a seminar with Honduran companies and the national authorities of the country.

American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) director of procurement, advocacy and international affairs, Dan Hilton, gives an overview of the activities of FIDIC in North America.

The leaders of ACEC, ACEC-Canada and FIDIC’s Mexican member association, CNEC, met virtually in August 2021. The three organisations discussed our priorities and challenges, still dealing with Covid-19 and the forecasted return to work. Members of CNEC joined ACEC virtually at its fall conference, where the international committee hosted a meeting with representatives from the Inter-American Development Bank. During our previous discussions, CNEC had expressed a priority to work closer with international financial institutions.

FIDIC North America began 2022 by supporting a webinar series on Integrity in the Americas. FIDIC integrity management committee chair and past ACEC international committee chair, Richard Stump of RS&H, Inc, presented an opportunity to learn about the recent successful implementation of integrity management on projects funded by the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC).

MCC funded a $257m programme of road and power investments in Liberia between 2016 and 2021. The Government of Liberia established a partner organisation, Millennium Challenge Account-Liberia (MCA-Liberia), which successfully implemented the programme, including developing and executing an anti-fraud and corruption action plan and other protocols to support the programme’s integrity. The initial session was hosted by ACEC, with additional sessions hosted by FIDIC and ACEC-Canada.

In May, ACEC hosted its Annual Spring Convention in Washington DC. Attending in person were ACEC-Canada president and CEO John Gamble as well as members of the FIDIC board, Tony Barry and Catherine Karakatsanis along with CEO Dr Nelson Ogunshakin. We met to discuss FIDIC and North American infrastructure activities and hosted a meeting with the US Export Import Bank.

The three associations also continue to discuss formalising sharing education and other resources.

Asia-Pacific update

President of FIDIC Asia-Pacific, Sudhir Dhawan, gives his update on the latest activities of the organisation which represents FIDIC member associations across the Asia-Pacific region.

The past year has been one of rebuilding for FIDIC Asia-Pacific as we expanded the board to a full complement of seven members and we have also reformed a number of committees, including events, communication, membership and the editorial board. We also set up the constitutional review committee as we need to amend the constitution to bring on board the Future Leaders Group.

We have organised a number of meetings of the board during the year and the executive committee is also now meeting as required. We have been kindly assisted by the Consulting Engineers Association of India who have provided secretariat services for our group and the FIDIC board has also enabled funding to help run the group going forward.

The steps we have taken to put the regional group onto a firmer footing and the strengthening of the board have put us in a better position to make progress. We held our first webinar in June led, by the Vietnamese MA, on the topical issue of digitalisation in the construction industry. The event was addressed by the president and CEO of FIDIC and included industry experts from Vietnam, Thailand and India taking part as speakers. The next webinar will be led by our Chinese MA, CNAEC in October. was planned for August. The packed 32-page May issue contained information on a wide range of issues of relevance to our industry including the impact of Covid on the global consulting industry, the importance of government procurement, securing biodiversity and achieving national development goals and GDP growth rates and inflation for Asia-Pacific countries. We welcome news from our MAs, including details of their events, for inclusion in the newsletter.

Future plans include holding our general assembly meeting at the end of September and the integration of our Future Leaders group into the activities of the overall regional group. Our aim is to make FIDIC Asia-Pacific one of the most active regional groups of FIDIC and to do this we will need the active support of all our member associations across the region.

New director general of the European Federation of Engineering Consultancy Associations (EFCA), Sue Arundale, offers an update on some of the latest activities of EFCA and FIDIC Europe on behalf of the engineering consultancy industry in Europe.

During the past year the European Federation of Engineering Consultancy Associations (EFCA) and FIDIC further strengthened their cooperation and established the FIDIC Europe board, provided for in the current FIDIC-EFCA agreement. At committee level, liaisons were appointed from each organisation to provide mutual support and align actions and coordination between EFCA’s European external action committee and the new FIDIC international financial institutions committee (IFIC) was also stepped up.

Other highlights during the year included a workshop with the DG for international partnerships on the changes to EU-financed external procurement procedures and their impact on the consulting engineering sector. A Future Leaders’ day included a debate, Digitalisation and Covid-19’s effects on the working environment. EFCA’s General Assembly Meeting, included a virtual discussion with DG for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations support group for Ukraine and concluded with the Future Leaders Awards ceremony. The spring 2022 Industry Barometer report was also launched.

In April, the EFCA board discussed Ukraine with officials from the DG for growth and this followed an EFCA statement earlier in the year on the same subject.

In February, the first ever EFCA Sector Review was published. Focusing on the sector’s evolving role and capabilities, it included a ranking of the 125 largest engineering consultancies in Europe.

Around 60 participants joined a European International Contractors/EFCA webinar on A Global Connectivity Strategy to Shape EU Infrastructure Investments. Speakers attended from the European Commission, European Investment Bank and French and German development financing agencies. EFCA and EIC highlighted integrated and high-quality project preparation and implementation which can offer clients and users value for money based on a lifecycle approach.

EFCA’s future trends committee also launched a report describing four future scenarios for the industry, based on ‘critical uncertainties’, to support firms with strategic decisions. Elsewhere, the EFCA digitalisation and BIM committee stepped up collaboration with the EU BIM Task Group and building SMART International. It also submitted a joint letter to the Commission with the Architects’ Council of Europe expressing concern about the practice of software vendors, in particular over licences, data ownership and accessibility.

The internal market committee looked at national procurement rules in nine countries and continued promoting the use of EFCA’s ‘MEAT’ guidance on how to draw up appropriate price and quality criteria.

A statement on COP26 and the climate emergency was also published in November 2021. EFCA joined the European Commission’s High Level Construction Forum, which met in September 2021 and the European external action committee and the European Federation of Management Consultancies Associations responded to the consultation on the financial regulation for indirect and shared management of EU funds.