Consulting Engineers South Africa (CESA) was declared winner in the Strategic Programme category at the 2021 FIDIC Member Association Excellence Awards for its ‘Protecting Lives and Livelihoods’ campaign. Held on Wednesday, 8 September, the MA Excellence Awards recognized individuals, teams, campaigns, initiatives, publications and events, while also celebrating excellence in how FIDIC’s global member associations operate in a fast-changing and dynamic industry landscape while serving their members and other stakeholders.
It was the second time the awards were held by the International Federation of Consulting Engineers (FIDIC), with the inaugural ceremony held in 2019 at the FIDIC Infrastructure Conference hosted in Mexico City. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, there was no conference in 2020 resulting in the awards process being temporarily halted.
Commenting on the event, FIDIC chief executive Dr Nelson Ogunshakin said: “The past year has been an extremely challenging one for FIDIC’s global member associations due to the unprecedented issues as a result of the Covid pandemic. Our members associations have risen to the challenge and have supported their members and stakeholders like never before and we are delighted to recognize their excellent work with these awards.”
CESA chief executive officer, Chris Campbell commenting after the announcement was made live via the webinar. “We would like to thank everyone involved in making this campaign such an incredible success. Once again South Africa is punching way above our weight against the many countries that are members of the International Federation of Consulting Engineers from across the world,” stated Campbell.
The role that engineers and specifically Consulting Engineers play in Protecting the Lives and Livelihoods is often hidden and not fully understood by Clients and Stakeholders but more so by the general public. The campaign was undertaken to educate these target markets as to what a Consulting Engineer is and the value they bring to society.
“In view of the current depressed state of the South African economy, even pre-Covid, and the impact that the development of value-for-money infrastructure can make in improving service delivery, CESA decided to undertake a major 3-year PR campaign to raise the profile of the industry and the positive impact it has in underpinning economic growth and development,” stated Campbell.
Known as the ‘silent profession’ Consulting Engineers are the drivers of economic growth through the design and development of infrastructure aimed at contributing to uplifting communities, alleviating poverty and unemployment in line with the aims of the South African Government’s National Development Plan (NDP) aligned to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.