Humanitarian Engineering to Rescue By: Jomanah AlBtoush (Jordan) and Wafaa Ahmed (Sudan)

FIDIC Young Professionals Forum Steering Committee (YPFSC) has identified Humanitarian Engineering as one of the main topic of interest of the Young Professionals (YPs) in 2017 and accordingly worked on related research and survey, which was presented as part of 1st International YPs Symposium in FIDIC International Infrastructure Conference in Jakarta, Indonesia on 1st Oct. 2017.

A humanitarian crisis/ disaster is defined as a singular event or a series of events that are threatening in terms of health, safety or well-being of a community or large group of people, usually occurs throughout a large land area. Therefore, local, national and international responses and collaboration are necessary in such events.

Different types of humanitarian crises are considered, including (Natural, Man-made, Conflicts, etc.) regardless of the types, the survivors are left in urgent need of life-saving assistance such as shelter, food, water, energy & health care...where the engineering industry is playing a pivotal role.

Consequently, Humanitarian engineering aims to research, design and implement to directly improve the well-being of poor, marginalized, or under-served communities, which often lack the means to address pressing problems. Through go beyond traditional approaches to finding smart, sustainable, innovative and appropriate solutions that can heal communities and help meet future challenges for developing communities.

An online survey was distributed via FIDIC social media pages to study the role of engineering industry in the humanitarian responses worldwide. for the full details please refer to the attached file.