FIDIC announced the winners of its 2022 FIDIC Member Association Excellence Awards this week at a glittering gala dinner event held on 12 September 2022 in Geneva.

The awards recognise individuals, teams, campaigns, initiatives, publications and events and celebrate excellence in how FIDIC’s global member associations serve their member firms and other stakeholders. Speaking at the awards presentation, the FIDIC president Tony Barry said: “These awards, now in their third year, showcase, reward and highlight the achievements and successes of FIDIC’s global member associations and the work they do representing the global consulting industry.

“As we all know, the past year has been a challenging one. As the engineering, construction and infrastructure sector – and indeed society – has finally emerged from the long shadow of the Covid pandemic, FIDIC’s global member associations have been playing an essential role in supporting their member firms and FIDIC is delighted to be recognising their brilliant work.”

This year’s Member Association Excellence Awards saw prizes presented in three categories as follows.

• Best Advancement of a Cause, Advocacy Campaign or Event
• Best Publication or Website
• Best Diversity and Inclusion Initiative.

In the Best Advocacy or Campaign category, the judges named a winner and a commended entry. The winner was Rådgivende Ingeniørers Forening (Association of Consulting Engineers – Norway) for their entry, Lobbying through the use of State of the Nation reports.

The judges were impressed by an initiative which has enabled RIF to raise its profile and influence at the highest levels in Norway. The State of the Nation reports have been crucial in establishing a platform for RIF’s visibility and lobbying in Norway and the judges were impressed by the fact that over the past four years, RIF's visibility has increased by 60% - from 300 to 500 yearly media clippings - and the organisation is now regularly invited onto national radio or TV to comment on various issues.

The commended prize was awarded to the Association of Consulting Engineers – New Zealand for their entry, Skills shortage, recruitment and immigration challenges in the construction sector.

In the Best Publication or Website category the judges named as winner the Association of Consulting Engineers of Zambia (ACEZ) for the ACEZ Future Leaders Group Quarterly Newsletter. The judges were impressed by the efforts of ACEZ as a smaller member association and the fact that the entry was for an initiative driven by their Future Leaders committee was seen as particularly admirable.

The newsletter enabled the current crop of young leaders in ACEZ to revitalise their Future Leaders grouping by sharing more information, creating more engagement and encouraging more participation of Future Leaders in local and international consulting engineering industry conversations. The judges were also impressed by the newsletter’s very good design and informative contents, which gave readers a sense of inclusion in the ACEZ community.

Finally, in the Best Diversity and Inclusion category, the judges awarded a commended prize to FRI, the Danish Association of Consulting Engineers, for their entry, Establishment of the Forum for Diversity and Equality and recommendations concerning pay during parental leave/parental leave of absence.

Concluding the presentation of the awards, FIDIC president Tony Barry thanked all the FIDIC member associations that submitted entries, congratulated all those shortlisted and all the winners and appealed for more FIDIC member associations to enter the awards in 2023 in order to showcase their brilliant work on behalf of the global consulting engineering sector.