The College of Architecture and Planning (CAP) has held its fourth International Conference on Infrastructure Development in Africa (ICIDA). The two-day conference was on the theme “Sustainable Infrastructure Development: The Nexus between Urbanization and Economic Growth”. The conference was held at the conference centre of the Institute of Distance Learning near the KNUST swimming pool.
In a welcome address, Professor Edward Badu, the Chairman for the ICIDA stated that the College of Architecture and Planning was the first academic institution in the world to make infrastructure development an issue for academic conferences. This was as a result of the rapid urbanization of African cities. He thanked all who had assisted in making the conferences successful and warmly welcomed participants.
The Vice-Chancellor was represented by Professor. Francis Yao Momade, the former head of the Department of Materials Engineering. In his opening remarks, Prof. Momade commended the College for successfully hosting the conference. He stated that KNUST prided itself in being one of the leading technology-driven institutions in Africa. The College was designated to be the College of Art and Built Environment because of the multidisciplinary nature of the programmes offered. The programmes were based on infrastructure, planning and development which would promote research and also incorporate art and culture. He congratulated the Provost of the College and the organizers and planning committee for their hard work.
Professor Chrisina Du Plessis, a Construction Economics lecturer at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, stated that climate change was already happening and the warming of the past 50 years was due mainly to human activities. She advised that architects and construction workers should consider building resilient structures when planning human settlements.
Prof Du Plessis explained that in order to change perspectives on sustainability, there was the need to learn how to respond, adapt to and evolve with change. Moreover, to build capacity for resilience, there was the need to sustain diversity. She revealed that the growth of urbanization in Africa was only one percent (1%). However, the problem was with the population in the countries. In order to build good infrastructure to sustain development, construction workers, architects and academicians needed to come out with ‘out of the box solutions’ such as building escalators to carry goods and assist people in the case of emergencies. She also emphasized that communication infrastructure could be used in times of crises.
Professor David Edwards, a Professor of Plant and Machinery Management at the Birmingham City University in the United Kingdom stated that one of the fundamental elements of safety was to eliminate the risk. He revealed that problems on the construction site such as improper supervision, negligence and other catastrophes had been witnessed globally not only in Ghana. He explained that modern construction managers were not being trained in basic safety science. The fact was that most of these managers did not have an idea about the capabilities of the construction machinery and plants, but instead they perceived the profitability of the ventures they were investing in. He advised that basic maintenance when practised by machine operators could prevent the frequent breakdowns of machines, deaths of the machine operators and financial losses to the construction companies. He stated that on the global scale, research could have an impact and become valuable when industry was involved in it and urged construction academia to collaborate with industry.
In a presentation, Mr. Frank Tackie, the Chief Executive Officer of Development Consult, Accra, stated that construction in sub-Saharan Africa was labour intensive. The informal construction sector was often unregulated and not formally accounted for yet it accounted for nearly all housing construction output in the rural areas. In developing countries, construction output accounted for eighty percent (80%) of the National Gross Fixed Capital. Depending on how it was managed, the construction industry could become a major source of foreign exchange reserve for the economy.
He explained that while some countries had clear national policies in the construction industry, there was no national policy or strategy or institution responsible for the construction industry in Ghana. The construction sector in Ghana was largely dependent on external inputs – materials, skilled labour and contractors – especially for public and major private sector projects.
Mr. Tackie revealed that in the 1970’s and 1980’s Ghana was far advanced in the use of local building materials at least for housing and high profile contractors sourced funding for major capital projects locally. The unregulated inflow of technology had contributed to diseconomies in the construction sector and the snail pace in technology transfer. He explained that large scale technologies had proved to be ineffective and that there was a porous regulatory regime for both local and imported building materials. He cited the examples of unenforceable byelaws, codes and building regulations.
Mr Frank Tackie further explained that there were countless opportunities in the construction industry. These included the large unmet demand in construction and the huge deficit of housing generally and quality housing in particular. Eighty percent (80%) of the housing stocks was not habitable by all standards and therefore urban renewal should tackle obsolescence and decay including slums and buildings that had outlived their lifecycle. He stated that presently there was no institution responsible for government buildings and that offices and many government and public buildings such as schools and markets across the country required massive overhaul.
Mr Tackie observed that there was competition for the location of major investments in Africa and therefore foreign direct investments required that countries should promote supply-led strategies in construction output. The relocation of the UN headquarters from Nairobi to Abidjan and the search for Ebola offices in Accra were examples. He urged stakeholders to focus on the way forward by halting the dominance of foreign contractors and dependence on imported skills especially through the neo-colonialists models. He encouraged a renaissance of government buildings and also pleaded that the informal sector be given a substantial proportion of public housing to manage.