The fourth plenary session of FIDIC’s Global Infrastructure Conference 2026 turned from financing, leadership and technology to the discipline that underpins all three: how contracts, procurement and project preparation convert unpredictable risk into something manageable, insurable and financeable.
Moderating the session, “Managing Risks in Uncertain Times: Contracting, Procurement and Project Preparation,” Linda Darr, President and CEO of the American Council of Engineering Companies, opened with a sobering starting point: by some estimates, nine in ten major infrastructure projects worldwide face delays or cost overruns, with the resulting inefficiencies costing an estimated $1.6 trillion a year, a third of that in the United States alone. Darr told delegates the risk landscape itself is not getting simpler, with geopolitical shocks, volatile supply chains, currency swings and climate risk now compounding one another in ways that make traditional risk planning harder to rely on.
None of that, she said, is actually new to the room. “What’s changed is the toolkit.” Better contracts, smarter procurement strategies and much stronger project preparation upfront, she argued, are exactly how the industry has always converted unpredictable risk into something bankable – and this session was about sharpening that toolkit for today's specific uncertainties.
“Surrounding yourself with the right people in the room, the right qualified people, will deliver you quality. It’s that simple,” said Darr.
She described the panel as spanning the full range needed for that conversation, from a global standard-setter working on quality infrastructure certification to firms delivering across multiple continents and a national association representing power producers in India.
Certification and quality as risk-pricing tools
Edwin Lau, Head of the Blue Dot Network Secretariat at the OECD, addressed how a globally recognised certification framework for quality infrastructure can reduce risk premiums and improve bankability in practice. Lau’s session coincided with the Blue Dot Network's launch, at the conference, of its report, Embedding Blue Dot Network Criteria in Infrastructure Procurement – timed alongside FIDIC's own Qualifications-Based Selection report.
“Engineering consultants are strategic partners for contraction authorities to deliver infrastructure that is both efficient and strategic. The BDN certification framework provides actionable criteria that engineering consultants can incorporate into project preparation and tender specifications. Together, BDN and FIDIC can support the implementation of quality infrastructure, creating a pipeline of quality projects to attract private investment,” Lau said.
“There is momentum underway in this area and project owners need to get on board with it as there are clear benefits for them,” Lau said, as he highlighted a number of projects that had benefited from a more enlightened approach to procurement and also created social value as part of that process.
Lau was asked about friction points in the Network's rollout across the seven countries where it is now live, and whether wider adoption is being held back more by investor appetite or by project-sponsor buy-in. He also spoke to what FIDIC's new QBS report adds to the case for selecting on quality rather than lowest price, arguing that embedding quality standards across a project's lifecycle gives consultants and contractors a stronger mandate to manage risk and uncertainty while reducing incentives to game the procurement process.
Ines Ferguson, business development director at TYPSA, framed consultants as risk mitigators who add most value early in a project’s life – value that is, by its nature, hard to point to commercially, since it is a risk that never materialised. Public clients can think that if they are choosing lowest price on a bid then they are saving money but that’s increasingly being seen as not the case.
“Bringing in private sector expertise into procurement is key, as is the application of technology,” said Ferguson. She said that the industry had to move away from only price awards on tenders, but that change was taking place in this area as clients could see the benefits of a more quality-orientated approach. Ferguson also addressed how the consulting industry stays relevant as a risk mitigator in the face of disruption from AI and other sectors and where earlier contractor involvement fits alongside that case and links in with other aspects of the project, drawing also on her perspective from the European Federation of Engineering Consultancy Associations.
Who really carries the risk?
Dan Larson, chair of the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) and chairman and CEO of American Engineering Testing Inc, addressed the increasingly interconnected nature of power, water and data centre infrastructure and how the interface between workforce skills shortages and AI is changing who actually carries decision risk on a project – noting that a human still has to decide on the final solution. “In pre-construction we need to try and control who owns and controls the risks and we have to get the consultants in early so they can make a difference,” he said, while saying that it was important to protect your firm.
“If we can’t control a risk then you are going to price it into your fees and that doesn’t help anyone. We need to get the project preparation right for managing risk from a monetary as well as a technical standpoint from the off,” said Larson.
Logashri Sewnarain, CEO of SMEC South Africa, spoke from a market where government remains the biggest client, addressing how risk can be made to land with whoever is genuinely best placed to manage it, rather than with whoever has the least negotiating power. On South Africa’s energy transition specifically, Sewnarain reflected on how much of the risk currently facing projects is really a skills and local-capacity issue rather than a purely technical one. “We also need to improve awareness of the key issues amongst our clients as if there are gaps in their knowledge then that is going to be a problem. Of course, you need to have the right people in your organisation to do this,” she said.
“Infrastructure has never been delivered in a stable environment. We cannot eliminate uncertainty. The challenge is to deliver bankable projects. We also need meaningful engagement, at an early stage, with local communities – participatory design – the more we can achieve up front and in consultation with the people who will use the project, the more we can reduce risks later on,” Sewnarain said.
The only constant is unpredictability
Indra Keshari, director general of the Association of Power Producers in India, gave an India-specific view, addressing how differently risk allocation needs to work across government and private-sector clients, drawing on his own background working for government and statutory bodies in the transport and power sectors.
“Integration of renewable energy with thermal power is bringing its own challenges but we are finding solutions,” he said, highlighting that clear risk allocation in the contract was crucial to a project’s success. “If we allocate risk in a fair and intelligent way then we are giving ourselves the best chance, and this includes being flexible when we need to be,” he said.
Keshari was keen to point out that the only real constant on Indian projects is unpredictability, which makes genuine contractual flexibility – rather than any assumption of stability – the more valuable design principle.
Closing the session, Darr told delegates that managing risk in uncertain times is not about eliminating uncertainty, but about building contracts, procurement processes and project preparation robust enough to absorb it. She said certification frameworks like Blue Dot, alongside FIDIC’s work on quality-based selection, are starting to make quality – not just price – part of how risk gets priced and financed, while the delivery-side discussion had underlined that resilience means placing risk with whoever is genuinely equipped to manage it, whether that is skills and local capacity in South Africa’s energy transition or consultants engaging earlier because prevention is cheaper than cure.
Darr said that better project preparation reduces risk before contracts are even signed; smarter procurement allocates what remains to whoever is best placed to manage it; and robust, well-understood contract frameworks give clients, consultants, contractors and financiers the shared language and predictability to act with confidence even when the world outside the project is not predictable at all. That, she told delegates, is a theme running through the whole conference: money, leadership, technology and contractual frameworks all need to align if the sector is to deliver the infrastructure the world needs.
Image at the top of the page shows the panellists in the “Managing Risks in Uncertain Times” session at the FIDIC Global Infrastructure Conference on 15 September 2026. (Left to right: Linda Darr, president and CEO of the American Council of Engineering Companies, Ines Ferguson, business development director at TYPSA, Indra Keshari, director general of the Association of Power Producers in India, Edwin Lau, head of the Blue Dot Network secretariat at the OECD, Logashri Sewnarain, CEO of SMEC South Africa and Dan Larson, chair of the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) and chairman and CEO of American Engineering Testing Inc.
