GAMA 2000: Gaborone - Botswana: P.G. Boswell/title>

ABSTRACT

A review of the International Federation of Consulting Engineers (FIDIC) response to the challenges of the new millennium as seen from the perspective of the Federation's Group of African Member Associations (GAMA). The main themes involve the restructuring of FIDIC activities, the development of FIDIC as an industry representative and as a supplier of products and services to members, and the generation of strategies and programmes to help member firms enhance their business practice and develop new business opportunities.

1. ACTIVITIES

A task-oriented approach for committees

FIDIC is well known for its products (contract forms, guides, manuals, and seminars) and owes much of its profile to the widespread acceptance of these products. As Wayne Bowes, the FIDIC President, indicated in the last issue of The FIDIC Report, the real strength of FIDIC lies in the commitment of its volunteers who work hard to generate these products and services. He went on to say that it is important then that the Executive Committee (EC) puts in place a committee structure that facilitates the work of the committees, and allocates the scarce resources to their best use. Added value has become a password in the federation and one has to continually focus on the need to create value in FIDIC services for clients, the Member Associations (MAs).

The world is changing fast, and markets and clients are too. FIDIC, as set out in the TF21 Report Engineering Our Future, has to respond. The current committee structure has been in place for some time and has responded well to past needs. There are now different forces acting and FIDIC must rethink how best to respond. The objective of a new approach must be straightforward: one has to utilize the volunteer resources of the FIDIC family to best promote the business interests of FIDIC members.

One of these interests is to broaden the scope of services provided by member firms and to encourage MAs to embrace this wider circle of firms in their membership. In this way, the industry may be better prepared to fend off advances being made by the aggressive management consulting industry at the conception of projects, and at the other end of the spectrum, by aggressive contractors who are using the new project delivery mechanisms to move in on areas traditionally serviced by Consulting Engineers.

The new approach advocated by the EC is to better define the scope of responsibilities of all committees, to utilize task forces with specific mandates in lieu of permanent committees, and to provide forums for discussion groups to address emerging issues. If specific projects are identified as being important to the industry, the Executive Committee will appoint a Task Force for the work. It is fundamental that one values and does everything possible to enhance the participation of all volunteers in this work. FIDIC is hopeful that all those who currently provide valuable input will continue to do so, and that new participants will be encouraged to join in. It is intended to make maximum use of IT capabilities, to facilitate the work of all Standing Committees, Task Forces and Forums, and in our liaison with other agencies and organizations.

As summarised in The FIDIC Report (available online at FIDIC.org), a large part of the agenda of the last Executive Committee meeting was devoted to examining FIDIC's current committee structure, and deciding how it can best be revised so as to provide maximum value for FIDIC’s members. The principal outcome will only become evident after the FIDIC 2000 Conference in Hawaii, in September, when FIDIC's list of Standing Committees will be reduced to only two committees, namely, the Contracts Committee and a Business Practices Committee. In the interim, current Standing Committees will be asked to complete tasks that are in hand by the 2000 Conference. From that point onward, all specific product tasks will be carried out by Task Forces, which will be given output-oriented, fixed-term, terms of reference.

However, some changes in FIDIC's committee structure will not wait until September. The Executive Committee decided to reduce FIDIC's list of standing committees, by renaming the Environment Committee as the Sustainability Task Force (STF). Bernd Kordes will chair STF, whose specific tasks it will be to complete FIDIC's Strategy Paper on Sustainable Development for the Consulting Engineering Industry and prepare a final draft of Guidelines for Business, and to provide input for the business programme for the FIDIC 2000 Conference in Hawaii.

A second FIDIC committee that will move to the Task Force category is the Quality Management Committee (QMC), which will now be renamed the Quality Management Task Force (QMTF). Tonny Jensen, chairman of QMC, will continue as chairman of QMTF, which is targeted to complete its current tasks of preparing a Quality Management Training Kit, revising the Quality Management Guide, and preparing the Interpretive Guide to ISO9001:2000, by September 2001. Tonny Jensen had recommended this change in the Quality Management Committee's structure, in his report to the Executive Committee for its meeting.

Thus, as of today, FIDIC's list of standing committees is reduced to the Client/Consultant Relationships Committee (CCRC), the Contracts Committee (CC) and the Risk Management Committee (RMC), as published on FIDIC.org/directory and in FIDICinfo 2000. Following the wrap up of current CCRC and RMC tasks by September, the CCRC will be renamed the Business Practices Committee (BPC), and the RMC will become a Risk Management Forum (RMF).

The RMF will meet annually at the time of the FIDIC annual conference, and in between, will network via email and telephone meetings. Ideas for specific outputs on the topic of risk management will be approved by the Executive Committee, after which a Task Force will be appointed by the Executive Committee, in collaboration with the chair of the Forum, to produce the products.

2. MEMBERS

New members

The size of the FIDIC family grew recently with the election of two new Member Associations (MAs), namely, the Saudi Engineering Society (SES) and the Association of Consulting Engineers of Columbia (AICO). This increases the number of FIDIC Member Associations to 68. More importantly, it brings in membership from the Middle East and Latin America, two regions where FIDIC wishes to increase its representation. Two new Affiliate Members were also elected, namely the International Association of Architects (IAA), based in Sofia, Bulgaria, and the Consultants Department, Ministry of Planning, Kuwait. These are two very interesting Affiliate Members: one an international academy of eminent architects of the world, who, like FIDIC, are keenly interested in promoting sustainablility; and the second, a government department that is interested in supporting the objectives of FIDIC and in helping to develop a MA in an area of the world where FIDIC does not have many MAs. Additionally, there are two new Sustaining Members of FIDIC, namely, Ashraf and Salah, Consulting Engineers, Sudan, and the Bulgarian Building Construction Chamber. These memberships, in regions of the world where FIDIC does not currently have major representation, are very welcome to FIDIC. Meanwhile, applications for membership or Correspondent status are being considered by Latvia, Cameroon and Ethiopia.

Subscriptions and voting being examined

Following up on from a proposal from Canada that FIDIC should review it subscription formula and consider some form of weighted voting for its members, the FIDIC Executive Committee (EC) has appointed a Subscriptions and Voting Task Force (SVTF) chaired by Dr. Touradj Amirsoleymani, an EC Member from Iran, and including Rafik Meghji, (EC Member; Tanzania), Klaus Rollenhagen (Germany) and Arnie Spiess (/USA)

The SVTF conducted a questionnaire survey of FIDIC's MAs, asking for inputs on their subscription formulae, and on their use of weighted voting. Twenty of the 68 MAs responded. Eleven stated that they used a maximum subscription, while nine did not. Seven gave a lower unit rate to larger member firms, while thirteen did not. Eleven used some form of weighted voting; nine did not. Six of the MAs stated they would support weighted voting for FIDIC, eleven said they would not, and two were undecided.

The SVTF met for the first time on 21 - 21 January 2000, in Switzerland, at the time of the FIDIC Executive Committee’s 144th meeting. The members reaffirmed that they were not representing a specific MA while taking part in the discussions of the SVTF. The discussions were wide ranging, going beyond the boundaries of the topics of subscriptions and weighted voting. It was agreed that whatever system would be recommended, it should be fair, and all MAs should feel they are reasonably represented and are obtaining value for their subscription fee.

The SVTF, agreed that the crucial task will be to try to "define" fairness, representation and value, via a new subscription/voting formula, in a way that appears reasonable to most MAs. The committee reviewed the results of the questionnaire responses, and noted that, based upon the questionnaire’s stated question, while a majority of the MAs responding used some form of weighted voting, the majority stated that they would not support weighted voting for FIDIC. This apparent contradiction posed a problem for the committee, because it looked like a recommendation to have some form of weighted voting for FIDIC would fail to obtain the two-thirds majority required at the General Assembly Meeting, even though such a recommendation seemed to fulfill all the above three criteria.

The committee then decided to examine new types of formulae to collect FIDIC subscriptions. Several proposals were made, including one which, on the surface, appeared to meet all the above criteria, but which failed because it was not certain to have passed the "value" criterion, and in any case, it did not seem to be practical. This proposal was to take the total subscription budget, and divide it by the number of MAs, to obtain an equal subscription for each member association. Since all FIDIC MAs receive more or less the same level of services from FIDIC, this proposal apparently passes the fairness test. However, it was argued that some of the member firms of each MA receive added value from FIDIC, so MAs with more firms probably receive more value. In any case, the proposal failed the (unwritten) "practicability test", because the committee agreed that most of the MAs from developing countries would not be able to afford the fee of 12,000 Swiss francs per annum that would be required to meet FIDIC's current subscription budget.

A second subscriptions option that was examined was one based on the square root of the number of employees in the MA. It was noted that many associations base their subscriptions on some form of inverse exponential curve, since it is felt that the marginal value per employee of membership in an association reduces as the size of the firm increases. It was equally felt that the marginal value per employee of a MA in FIDIC also decreased as the association grew in size. It was noted that FIDIC currently acknowledges this fact by reducing the uniform unit rate per weighted employee for Member Associations having weighted employee's exceeding 20,000, and further reducing the unit rate for MAs with weighted employee's exceeding 30,000.

The SVTF felt that there would be merit in introducing a smooth curve for FIDIC's subscription formula, rather than using the current linear formula, with two sharp breaks at the 20,000 and 30,000 points on the weighted employee axis. However, when an example of such a curve was examined, it became immediately evident that introducing such a curve and trying to obtain the same total amount of subscriptions would result in most of the smaller associations paying more than their current subscriptions, with only a few of the larger associations benefiting from the reducing marginal value effect of the smooth curve.

The SVTF agreed to reflect on the issues discussed, and to submit proposals for subscription formulae, or weighted voting, or other options which would meet the criteria of fairness, representation and perceived value for membership, for the consideration of the Executive Committee, and eventual consideration and approval by the General Assembly Meeting. It was also agreed that the whole process should be as transparent as possible, so that input could be received from members in advance of any eventual changes in FIDIC's statutes. FIDIC's MAs and their members are encouraged to reflect on the task of the SVTF, and to submit proposals to the Secretariat

New procedures for election to the Executive Committee

The FIDIC Executive Committee has decided that giving candidates for election to the Executive Committee an opportunity to speak briefly to delegates at the General Assembly Meeting, before many of them cast their votes for the election, would be a good idea. All ballots must be deposited in the ballot box by 17:00 on the evening before the Meeting. At future Meetings, the Executive Committee will try to provide an opportunity for brief presentations from the candidates for election before this deadline.

One-voice policy

A key item for discussion at recent Executive Committee meetings was a concern from the Group of African Member Associations (GAMA) that they wished to be represented at FIDIC meetings with International Lending Agencies (ILAs).

President Wayne Bowes had prepared a discussion paper for the meeting in which he noted that multiple representation at these meetings presented the potential for conflicting views to be expressed on important topics which could lead to the Banks asking "Who speaks for industry?", or waiting for the industry to "sort itself out", or, possibly, using any division in expressed opinions to their advantage in debates with the consulting industry. He recommended that FIDIC and the ILAs continue with the format of biennial meetings (the so-called BIMILACI conference), where issues are defined and task forces identified and resourced to address the issues, reporting back with some action plan and resolution. FIDIC will involve the regional groupings in the Task Forces, but will remain the sole spokesperson for the industry at the meetings.

FIDIC will work with the regional groupings on the task force findings and develop a single-industry position by consensus. FIDIC will encourage regional federations to meet with their regional ILA Boards and address common concerns, respecting the FIDIC position of policy were relevant. Finally, FIDIC will improve its communications with MAs and regional federations (see below) so that all are kept informed of the issues, work of the task forces, and positions being formulated.

Wayne Bowes stated that he believed that this one-voice policy should lead to increased clarity of position of our industry on key issues, more regional cooperation, improved communications, and increased stature for FIDIC in the eyes of our industry and the ILAs, thereby enhancing FIDIC effectiveness as of the industry representative.

3. CONTRACTS AND PUBLICATIONS

Record sales

The sales of FIDIC conditions of contracts reached an all-time high over the past few months since the publication of the first editions of FIDIC's New Books last September. Total sales for 1999 were nearly Swiss francs 840,000.- ($500,000), about one-half of FIDIC’s total revenues.

FIDIC held several seminars in cities such as London, Budapest, Tokyo and Ljubljana, describing the new conditions of contract to potential users. At the Tokyo seminar, nearly 300 attendees from the private and public sectors received the new Conditions of Contract for Construction, which had just been translated into Japanese by FIDIC’s Member Association in Japan (AJCE). This was the largest attendance at any FIDIC seminar in its history.

FIDIC will continue to co-organize seminars on the new contracts if there is sufficient demand. In general, however, it is other organizations, including MAs, who will be organizing seminars and workshops on the new contracts. FIDIC aims to maintain full details in the Federation Diary on FIDIC.org.

FIDIC's documents can be purchased from both FIDIC and its Member Associations. Interested buyers can also visit the Bookshop at FIDIC.org, and order online either hard copy or electronic versions of all publications. Online credit card processing has been introduced recently to ensure that customers have immediate access to products.

FIDIC will continue to be the only source of electronic versions of its documents, but will share the revenues of sales of these versions with MAs. Special measures have also been introduced for both online and offline sales to ensure that potential customers are aware that documents can be purchased locally from Member Associations. Generally speaking, associations are the sole sales agents in a country, and the reduction they receive on orders has been increased by 25% to ensure that they profit fully from the potential to general revenues through the sale of FIDIC publications.

New digital initiatives

FIDIC has been offering its conditions of contract and other important publications in electronic formats for over a year. In order to guarantee the authenticity if its documents, the FIDIC Bookshop has decided to supply its Portable Document Format (PDF) versions of "whole" documents in an encrypted form that requires an Authorization String for installation on the user’s computer. Once installed, a whole-document PDF can be printed for a preset number of times (typically 20 times) for a specified period of time (typically 180 days).

Each page continues to bear a FIDIC seal as a watermark certifying that printing by the user is authorized, and key pages bear a unique time stamp specifying who printed the page, and when. Photocopying renders the seal and much of the layout illegible in order to discourage the unauthorised use of photocopies in contracts. By contrast, "part documents", namely those parts of a document that are intended to be either copied or edited by the user, continue to be made available in unencrypted PDF and word-processing formats.

The encryption system was supplied by FileOpen Systems, Inc., and FIDIC MAs are able to acquire the software for their own needs, on very favourable terms, within the framework of FIDIC’s Digital Documents Initiative. This new initiative aims to encourage MAs to standardise, if possible, the supply of electronic versions of documents. Associations have been invited to nominate contact persons, and FIDIC is currently considering whether it should offer its members an online encryption service.

As part of a general consideration of the rapidly growing impact of electronic systems for business-to-business operations, FIDIC is exploring ways to monitor electronic procurement with a view to possibly recommending guidelines for good practice. Such systems are currently being used in Canada, the UK, Finland and the European Union.

World Bank evaluation

FIDIC’s four new Conditions of Contract were introduced at a special launch seminar at the FIDIC 1999 Annual Conference. These new books are informally titled The Construction Contract (for Employer designed projects), The Plant and Design-Build Contract (for Contractor designed projects), The EPC Contract (for Engineer- Procure - Construct projects) and The Short Form (for straightforward projects).

Feedback from the attendees at the seminar was positive, and FIDIC was particularly pleased to hear comments from representatives of development banks stating that they would be using some of the books as recommended General Conditions for contracts in bank-financed projects.

The World Bank has been sent copies of the new contracts for use in the World Bank's new Standard Bidding Documents, and for possible use by other development banks depending on final agreement of harmonized bidding procedures. FIDIC has already received for comment from the World Bank a first draft of a Standard Bidding Document for Simple Works that is based on FIDIC's new Short Form of Contract.

Upcoming publications

Upcoming FIDIC publications include a Guide to the three new Conditions of Contract (in summer, 2000), a Strategy Paper on Sustainability for the Consulting Engineering Industry, a Environmental Management System Handbook (to accompany the Kit and the Guide), a Quality Management Training Kit, a revised Quality Management Guide, and a new Interpretive Guide to ISO9001:2000.

It is also planned to release an EMS CD, comprising the Environmental Management System products together with ancillary documents (and translations wherever available), as well as a FIDIC CD that will contain electronic versions of all FIDIC products. These products can then be unlocked and installed one-by-one on a customer's computer through the sale of authorization strings.

4. BUSINESS PRACTICE

Adjudicators instead of Arbitrators and Experts

FIDIC's web site and Info booklet currently contain two lists, namely, of Arbitrators and of Experts (Mediators, Adjudicators, Experts). These lists encourage readers to contact those listed before approaching the Secretariat for the expertise required.

Arbitration was once regarded as the preferred method of resolving disputes, which would have progressed through the procedure of a decision made by an impartial Engineer who had been appointed solely by the Employer. FIDIC believes that there are many other sources of potential arbitrators, either by country or by arbitral institution, and these sources usually relate to organizations which strive to, and have the resources to, ensure that listees are competent to perform this challenging role.

Arbitration is now an excessively formal process, requiring more legal skills than FIDIC is able to validate. Moreover, all of FIDIC's new Conditions of Contract contain provisions for Dispute Adjudication Boards (DABs). FIDIC believes that the use of these one-person or three-person boards is the most efficient way to resolve, or even avoid, disputes in construction projects.

Thus, FIDIC is now setting up procedures to establish a List of Dispute Adjudicators that will be quality assured by FIDIC. The first step in the procedures used to provide training and assessment for dispute adjudicators. As a part of the responsibility of the Contracts Committee, FIDIC has appointed an Assessment Panel for Adjudicators, comprising Peter Booen, Gordon Jaynes and Igor Leto, to assess applications for FIDIC's List of Dispute Adjudicators. For those persons who are judged to require training, in order to become eligible for entry on the List, FIDIC will be providing Dispute Adjudication Training and Assessment. Faculty for the training workshop is Peter Booen, Gordon Jaynes and Peter Chapman. The first training and assessment workshop held on 28-29 February 2000 in London was oversubscribed, so a second is planned for Poland in May followed by additional workshops in Asia and the USA if there is sufficient demand.

First priority has been given to persons who are currently listed on FIDIC's List of Arbitrators and List of Experts. However, anyone interested in taking dispute education training is encouraged to visit FIDIC's web site at FIDIC.org/dab to obtain details on admission criteria and application requirements.

FIDIC has also decided to gradually phase out its Arbitrators List, and to end up with only the List of Adjudicators, which FIDIC is better able to quality assure. Therefore, starting now, FIDIC will no longer accept applications for its List of Arbitrators, or its List of Experts, but will only consider applications to a List of Dispute Adjudicators. FIDIC has sent a letter to its member associations, outlining the admission procedure for persons wanting to be admitted to FIDIC's List of Dispute Adjudicators. Full details are available at FIDIC.org/dab.

5. BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

Benchmarking firms and associations

Developing the capacity of local firms and their associations is the main goal of the Capacity Building Task Force chaired by Eigil Pedersen, the FIDIC Vice-President. The Task Force has evaluated existing benchmarking surveys of firms carried out by Member Associations as well as the suitability of the CICF-SYNTEC (France) survey of MAs, carried out last summer, for benchmarking MAs. The fairly sophisticated surveys made annually by Denmark’s FRI and Australia’s ACEA can be recommended as the basis for benchmarking firms in relatively well-developed countries. However, MA benchmarking clearly needs more appropriate tools, so the Task Force will be making proposals at its next meeting in Niagara Falls in May. These will probably incorporate the company profile registration form proposed by FIDIC’s Client/Consultant Relationship Committee.

Reviewing industry and association trends

The Directors and Secretaries of FIDIC Member Associations who last met in The Hague at the FIDIC 1999 Annual Conference agreed to adopt a new format for annual country reports that would focus on trends in the consulting industry.

The format will be based on a survey of associations that was carried out by Jean Felix of France's SYNTEC. He demonstrated that industry statistics are now available for most countries from established sources, so MAs therefore need only provide a few national statistics in order to arrive at fairly accurate estimates of business volumes.

For example, for the 14 countries surveyed in 1999, the gross capital formation (GFCF: the purchasing parity adjusted "rough investment" in construction and durable goods) is given from published OECD and World Bank data as $US 2087 bn for 1997. Knowledge-based design services are required for all of the construction sector investment (52% of GFCF) and some 58% of the investment in durable goods (48% of GFCF), giving a total of $133 bn. Member Associations for the 14 countries surveyed gave an average of 8% for the percentage of total investment spent on knowledge-based design services, so the market for these services in the 14 countries amounted to $133 bn in 1997. The GFCF for the 14 countries was 31.5% of the world total of $6627 bn, so the world market for knowledge-based design services was estimated to be $422 bn.

Member Associations indicated that this market is shared as follows in the 14 countries: 53% for companies for which more than 50% of the added-value income came from the sale of engineering-based design services; 23% for companies for which less than 10% of the added-value income came from the sale of engineering-based design services; and 24% for organizations which carried out their own knowledge-based design services in-house.

It was therefore estimated that firms whose primary business was to supply technology-based intellectual services represented a $224 bn industry worldwide in 1998. For the 14 countries, firms supplying mainly knowledge-based design services employed some 572,000 people, so the turnover per staff member was $123,000.

Jean Felix and John Cederberg (FRI, Denmark) who co-chaired the 1999 Directors and Secretaries meeting, will be drafting the new annual report form, and Jean has agreed to analyse the results for the next two years. It is anticipated that the new form of report will give valuable insight into the development of the industry as well as establishing trends relating to business practice (notably regulation of professional practice and member firm activities) and association effectiveneness (notably representativity and activities). The survey results and a report of the meeting are available on the FIDIC.org Internal website. Member associations which did not reply to the survey have been asked to fill in the survey questionnaire so that FIDIC’s Capacity Building Task Force can see whether the data can be used to benchmark associations (see above).

Sustainability strategy released

There has been a world-wide shift in politics and society from relatively straightforward environmental protection, where FIDIC has made several significant contributions, to sustainablility. The Federation is therefore evaluating activities to promote ways in which sensitivity to environmental, socio-economic and risk issues can be incorporated into projects and consulting practice, leading to better solutions.

In a strategy paper released for comment at the 1999 FIDIC Annual Conference, the Sustainability Task Force argued that FIDIC’s strategy for sustainable development should focus on two main aspects, namely: "Professional Policy" comprising professional attitudes, public relations and co-operation, and "Services" comprising the services delivered by FIDIC members. The task force aims to formulate both overall objectives and more detailed objectives and activities for each aspect. Services include not only technology-based aspects striving for eco-efficiency using sound technologies but also sustainable resource management and long-term, life-cycle oriented conceptual thinking and project management.

The strategy paper will be published in its final from in mid-2000, and the task force's immediate aim is to draft guidelines for business services that can be delivered by member firms in the area of sustainability. These guidelines, which will be based on those drawn up for environmental management, together with the results of demonstration projects will be presented at The FIDIC 2000 Conference in Hawaii. They will form part of an analysis of the engineering business community’s ability to respond to a world-wide demand for sustainable development of both natural resources, and the work we do to create the built environment. A draft of the strategy paper and the FIDIC 2000 programme are available on FIDIC.org.

The follow-up to the presentation in Hawaii of the challenges will by the FIDIC 2001 Conference Partners in Sustainablity (Montreux, Switzerland) that aims to draw together strategic partnerships that can help FIDIC and its members build a dynamic industry adapted to the changing business environment.

Integrity management system to be formulated

FIDIC's Integrity Task Force has been working closely with development bank representatives over the past few months. Dr. Felipe Ochoa, Stan Kawaguchi and Jorgé Diaz Padilla prepared a first draft of an Integrity Management System (IMS), subtitled The Engineering Consultants Action Plan against Corruption: Towards an International Standard on Integrity Accountability, for the review of World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank representatives in Washington in August 1999. At a meeting with bank representatives in September 199 it was agreed that financing would be identified to review this first draft, and prepare an IMS. The IMS will include a broad program of integrity assurance guidelines and the formal process of integrity certification. It is hoped that, in time, integrity certification will become a scoring item in the procurement of professional services around the world, and will eventually be accepted by all professional service firms as good business practice. The next meeting with the World Bank takes place in May 2000 in Washington.

6. EVENTS AND REPRESENTATION

FIDIC 2000 Conference

The FIDIC 2000 Conference (10-14 September 2000) Sustainability: The Challenge of the New Millenium is hosted by the American Consulting Engineers Council in collaboration with the Association of Japanese Consulting Engineers and the China National Association of Engineering Consultants. Special features will be round-table discussion forums reporting back to plenary sessions, special efforts to ensure effective networking between business colleagues, a special reception for first-time attendees, and a parallel business-track programme. Price reductions are available for young participants (under 45 years old), for up to three participants per Member Association from less developed countries, and for multiple registrants from the same firm. For information, please contact ACEC (USA) or visit FIDIC.org/conference/2000. It is not too early to begin planning for travel and more importantly, visas, to Hawaii to attend FIDIC 2000.

Regional representation

Within the framework of the restructuring of FIDIC committees, the Executive Committee has proposed that its Terms of Reference include "To be responsible for representational activities necessary to maintain and enhance FIDIC's image on the global scene". Enhanced representation by Executive Committee members is foreseen. One avenue which is being explored to have Executive Committee meetings hosted by Member Associations who can then profit from the presence of the Executive to invite representatives of local industry and national government. Meanwhile Executive Committee members have already visited this year Member Associations in Morocco, India, Sri Lanka, Germany, UK, France, and Ireland. A major visit by the President and the Managing Director to China is planned for May, and Secretariat staff will be visiting Denmark, The Netherlands, Hungary, Poland, and Malaysia.

The RINORD group of Managing Directors met at the FIDIC Secretariat in January, and were joined by colleagues from several other FIDIC associations. RINORD is the informal grouping of FIDIC's northern European Member Associations from Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark. The Councils of the RINORD associations meet several times per year, as do the Managing Directors.

FIDIC will be represented at major regional events in most parts of the world over the next few months, notably the: FIDIC Group of African Member Associations (GAMA) Annual General Meeting and Conference (Gaborone, Botswana; 22-28 March); Joint Convention of the Association of Consulting Engineers of Canada and the American Consulting Engineers Council (Buffalo/Niagara Falls; 14 - 19 May ); Pan-American Federation of Consulting Engineers (FEPAC) Annual Consulting Congress (Yucatan, Mexico; 17 - 20 May); European Federation of Consultancy Associations (EFCA) General Assembly Meeting and Conference (Vienna, Austria; 24 - 26 May); and the Technical Consultancy Development Programme for Asia and the Pacific (TCDPAP) Annual International Seminar "Strategies for Globalisation" (10 - 12 April, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia).

FIDIC also visits leading development banks, international agencies, industry organizations and business groups on a regular basis in its efforts to ensure a comprehensive and far-reaching coverage as the representative of the consulting engineering industry worldwide.

| GAMA HOME | GAMA 2000 HOME|

GAMA 2000 22 - 24 March 2000 GABORONE-BOTSWANA	Organized by the Botswana Association of Consulting Engineers on behalf of FIDIC's Group of African Member Associations (GAMA)

*FIDIC in 2000 from the GAMA Perspective* Presentation by Peter Boswell, General Manager, FIDIC

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