African consulting engineers made up of topmost engineers on the African continent have left Accra Ghana after deliberating on ways out of the $170bn funding deficit that strikes hard on infrastructure development in Africa.
The highlight of the event, however, was the emergence of George Chukwulewa Okoroma, one of the foremost engineers from Nigeria as the next president.
The 31st FIDIC Africa Infrastructure Conference brought together engineers, policymakers and development partners under the theme: ‘Future-Ready Infrastructure: Advancing Africa Through Innovation and Sustainability’.
Thus, consulting engineers, infrastructure leaders, policymakers, and development finance institutions from across the African continent gathered in Accra, Ghana, from May 10 to 13 May 2026 for the 31st FIDIC Africa Infrastructure Conference, hosted by the Ghana Consulting Engineers Association (GCEA) in collaboration with FIDIC Africa.
The Accra edition convened delegates representing governments, multilateral institutions, consulting engineering firms, and the next generation of African engineers to confront the most pressing questions facing Africa’s infrastructure future: financing models, procurement reform, local content, climate resilience, and the innovation gap.
Against the backdrop of Africa’s annual infrastructure financing gap estimated by the African Development Bank at between US$130 billion and US$170 billion, delegates explored actionable strategies for sustainable infrastructure delivery.
According to Kristen Bestmann-Danagogo, media contact of new president, the conference agenda addressed procurement frameworks that make local engineering participation a genuine requirement, deepened partnerships with the African Union and the African Development Bank, and invested meaningfully in the next generation of African engineers through the FIDIC Africa Future Leaders programme.
A defining highlight of the Accra conference was the formal inauguration of George Chukwulewa Okoroma, fellow of the Nigerian Society of Engineers, as President of FIDIC Africa, marking a milestone for Nigerian engineering on the continental stage.
Okoroma becomes the first Nigerian to assume the FIDIC Africa presidency in recent history, succeeding Rizwan Qadri of Tanzania. His ascent to the continental presidency was the result of nearly a decade of consistent institutional contribution: first elected to the FIDIC Africa Executive Committee in September 2016 at the 23rd General Assembly in Marrakesh, Morocco; serving as Honorary Treasurer; elected Deputy President at the FIDIC Africa Infrastructure Conference in Tanzania in 2024; and confirmed as President-Elect at the FIDIC Africa General Assembly in May 2025. “This is the result of earned progression — nearly four decades of engineering practice, institutional service, and continental engagement. I do not take it as a personal honour. I take it as a continental responsibility.
The new president said: “Africa’s infrastructure future depends on empowering local engineers, enforcing the policies we already have on paper, and building the next generation’s capacity to lead. I am ready to bring everything I have built and learned to this office, and to lead FIDIC Africa with integrity, vision, and a servant’s heart.”
Speaking with BusinessDay after his emergence as new president, Okoroma said FIDIC was formally constituted on 22 July 1913, following a gathering of consulting engineers who met in Belgium. “Its founding principles, which remain its bedrock today, are Quality, Integrity, and Sustainability.” The intention was to provide a platform for collaboration and improved linkages in Africa.
On what FIDIC does for engineering, he said it’s contributions operate on several levels: Standard Contract Documents, saying FIDIC is best known for publishing international standard-form contracts – the “Rainbow Suite” – which govern construction and engineering projects globally.
“These include the Red Book (for employer-designed works), the Yellow Book (for contractor-designed works), and the Silver Book (for EPC/Turnkey projects). The suite was updated most recently in 2017 to incorporate modern principles of risk management, dispute avoidance, and collaborative delivery. These contracts function essentially as a universal contract dictionary for the engineering world, a common language that governs how projects are scoped, priced, supervised, paid for, disputed, and concluded, regardless of the country or parties involved.”
He mentioned Integrity and Quality Promotion; Capacity Building and Training, Advocacy (FIDIC partners with the World Bank and Multilateral Development Banks to ensure the application of international standards in financing and delivering infrastructure worldwide);”
On how FIDIC plans to handle the $170 Billion infrastructure gap, Okoroma said only between $68bn and $108Bn is available. “The Accra conference was directly focused on confronting this crisis, and the answers that emerged span several interlocking dimensions such as ‘Bankable Projects Through Integrity’. He said the core of FIDIC’s answer to the financing gap is not simply “find more money.”
He said it is to make African infrastructure projects worthy of the money that already exists globally. “When projects are poorly scoped, opaquely contracted, or supervised without independent engineering oversight, international investors and development finance institutions walk away.
“FIDIC’s contract standards and integrity frameworks are designed precisely to create the conditions under which projects become attractive to capital.”
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He said when a project is structured under FIDIC conditions, it signals to lenders, governments, and development banks that the risks are clearly allocated, the roles are defined, and dispute resolution mechanisms are in place.
Another approach he disclosed is closing the skills gap through CPD: “FIDIC’s credentialing and professional development programmes are built on the understanding that better-trained professionals working on projects increase the likelihood of successful investment and project outcomes. Continuing Professional Development is not a bureaucratic exercise; it is the mechanism through which African engineers maintain the technical and ethical competence to design, supervise, and deliver projects that work.
“An engineer who cannot produce a technically sound feasibility study, an accurate bill of quantities, or a proper environmental impact assessment cannot produce a bankable project. CPD closes that gap. Partnerships with Development Finance Institutions: At the Accra conference, outgoing FIDIC Africa President Qadri called for stronger partnerships among governments, engineers, financial institutions, development partners, and private sector actors to ensure infrastructure projects across the continent are properly designed, financed, and managed.”
He said FIDIC at the global level already operates these partnerships with the World Bank, the African Development Bank, and the UN. The task for FIDIC Africa is to deepen and localise them. He mentioned innovative financing models.
He recalled how Kenneth Adjei, Ghana’s keynote speaker at the Accra conference, who currently serves as minister in charge of the Ministry of Works and Housing (Ghana), challenged the industry to develop innovative financing instruments, including public-private partnerships, infrastructure bonds, pension funds, and capital market instruments.
“Tools such as partial risk and credit guarantees, and blended finance, when structured appropriately, can make projects bankable. There is also the matter of President Buhari’s Executive Order 5, signed on 5 February 2018 – the Presidential Executive Order for Planning and Execution of Projects, Promotion of Nigerian Content in Contracts, Science, Engineering and Technology. The order directed all Ministries, Departments and Agencies to give preference to Nigerian companies and firms in contract awards, to engage indigenous professionals in the planning, design, and execution of projects, and prohibited the issuance of visas to foreign workers whose skills are readily available in Nigeria.
“This was the government’s formal, constitutional recognition that Nigerian engineers should be at the forefront of Nigeria’s infrastructure delivery. The implementation of that order, however, has been inconsistent and incomplete.”
On what the ascent of a Nigerian to FIDIC Africa Presidency would mean for Nigeria and Rivers State, he said: “It is important to state clearly: Engr. George Chukwulewa Okoroma is not the FIDIC Africa President for Nigeria. He is a Nigerian serving a continental mandate. His trajectory tells its own story. He was the pioneer Chairman of the Omoku Branch of the Nigerian Society of Engineers, building professional structure at the grassroots. He rose to become the 18th National President of ACEN, where he championed digital transformation and kept the association functioning through the COVID-19 disruption, earning the title of “Digital President.”
“Now he intends to champion development at the continental level. Engr. Okoroma’s agenda – expanding membership, enforcing local content in procurement, investing in Future Leaders – will have direct resonance in Nigerian policy circles, as it will across all FIDIC Africa Member Associations.”
On his vision for closing the infrastructure gap, Okoroma said his approach is rooted in a principle he has demonstrated at every level of his career: development must begin where you stand, then expand outward. “At the continental level, his agenda for closing the infrastructure gap rests on four pillars: First, enforcement of local engineering participation. He has consistently argued that policies requiring local engineer involvement – like Nigeria’s own Executive Order 5 – must move from aspiration to genuine enforcement. When foreign firms lead African infrastructure projects from design through delivery without meaningful local involvement, not only is the financing gap unchanged, but the skills gap widens.”
He said African engineers are excluded from the very projects that should be building their capacity. “Second, continental partnership with development finance institutions. His agenda includes deepening FIDIC Africa’s relationships with the African Union and African Development Bank, ensuring that engineers have a voice in the policy and financing decisions that shape what gets built, where, and how.
“Third, the Future Leaders programme. He recognises that closing the gap is ultimately a generational challenge. An infrastructure gap of $170 billion cannot be closed by the engineers working today alone; it requires a next generation that is better trained, better credentialled, and better connected to global standards from early in their careers.”
He said FIDIC has an agenda for young engineers in African Universities. “It is more structured than commonly known. The FIDIC Future Leaders Management Course (FLMC): FIDIC’s Future Leaders Management Course is an online management learning programme designed to strengthen the business expertise of young engineers and other consulting professionals.”
He mentioned FIDIC Past Presidents’ Scholarship Award as specifically designed to give engineers from developing-world member associations, which include all FIDIC Africa members, access to global management training they would not otherwise be able to afford.
There is also the FIDIC Future Leaders Advisory Council (FLAC) which is comprised of young professionals from FIDIC’s global member associations. “It was formed to provide emerging professionals in the consulting engineering industry with opportunities to participate in FIDIC activities and to develop the next generation of FIDIC and industry leaders FIDIC Credentialing (FCL).”
He said FIDIC’s credentialing body offers structured certification programmes that target professionals at various levels of knowledge and experience, with certification maintained through recognised CPD processes.
“This is the bridge between a university engineering degree and the internationally recognised professional standard that development banks, project financiers, and international firms actually require. The gap for Africa, and a specific opportunity for Engr. Okoroma’s presidency is deepening the reach of all these programmes into African universities and member associations, so that young engineers in Port Harcourt, Lagos, Nairobi, and Accra are not simply aware of FIDIC in theory, but are trained, credentialled, and networked through it from the beginning of their careers.”
At the national level, Okoroma served as the 18th President of the Association for Consulting Engineering in Nigeria (ACEN) from February 2020, steering the association through the COVID-19 pandemic via a full pivot to digital operations, earning him the lasting designation of ACEN’s “Digital President.”
He also served on the COREN Council and as South-South Regional Steering Committee Chairman.
Okoroma is a civil engineer, entrepreneur, and institutional leader with over four decades of infrastructure practice, company-building, and public service.
Born on 4 July 1952 in Omoku, Rivers State, he earned a Bachelor of Technology in Civil Engineering from Université Paul Sabatier in Toulouse, France (1981), and a Master of Science in Project Management from the University of Roehampton, London.
He launched his engineering career at Gokon Nigeria Limited in 1983, managing Federal Roads maintenance across Rivers and Bayelsa States.
In 1989, he founded Gambeta Nigeria Limited, now the Gambeta Groupe, which has delivered infrastructure across roads, bridges, shipping berths, warehouses, industrial facilities, and residential estates.
In 2004, he established GAPEC Consultants Limited as the Groupe’s consulting engineering arm, serving clients including Total E&P Nigeria Limited and the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
Okoroma is a prominent and active member and fellow of various professional associations in Nigeria and abroad which include, Fellow Nigerian Society of Engineers (FNSE), Fellow Nigerian Institution of Civil Engineers (FNICE), Fellow Nigerian Institution of Highway and Transportation Engineers (FNIHTE), Fellow Nigerian Institution of Structural Engineers (FNIStructE), Member American Society of Civil Engineers (M.ASCE), Member Institution of Diagnostic Engineers UK (MIDiagE). Council Member, Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) 2020-2021, and Chairman COREN South-South Regional Steering Committee.
FIDIC Africa formally known as the Group of African-member associations, is the official regional group representing the African member associations of the International Federation of Consulting Engineers (FIDIC). FIDIC Africa unites professional consulting engineering associations across the African continent, advancing the standards, ethics, and capacity of the consulting engineering profession in support of Africa’s sustainable infrastructure development.
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