The World Bank is the largest donor in Western and Central Africa (AFW) with 355 active projects amounting to $58 Billion and 72 projects in the pipeline worth $12 Billion.

Effective management of these projects is thus important to achieve sustainable project development outcomes.

The World Bank AFW Procurement Units has thus established a sustainable collaboration with the Ghana Consulting Engineers Association (GCEA) to offer continuous training and capacity building in contract management within the region. GCEA has extensive experience and expertise in the delivery of procurement and project management-related training and is among the few accredited FIDIC training centers in the Western and Central Africa sub-region.

The training will be held annually and facilitated by GCEA through a certified FIDIC trainer. The maiden edition began on Monday, April 15, 2024, and it is expected to end on Friday, April 19 2024, at the Engineering Centre, Roman Ridge, Accra with fifty (50) participants from Ghana, Cape Verde, Sierra Leone, and Liberia.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the training workshop, Ing. Festus Odametey, Vice-President of GCEA, on behalf of the President of the GCEA, welcomed the participants to the training and noted that the training will be based on the FIDIC Red Book.

He said, GCEA in partnership with FIDIC and sponsorship of the World Bank, is providing this technical training for staff across the project implementation units for World Bank projects in Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Cape Verde.

Michelle Keane, the Operations Manager of the World Bank said, “GCEA has extensive expertise in the delivery of contract management related trainings within the sub-region and being an accredited FIDIC Training Center gives some quality assurance of the training being delivered".

She further emphasised that this training will be held annually but this maiden edition is fully funded by the World Bank and hence absolutely free for all participants. The Bank is thus, hopeful that this collaboration is going to be sustained for the benefit of not only the World Bank projects but the region as a whole and leading to the achievement of sustainable development outcomes”.

The World Bank Operations Manager concluded that the Bank’s Procurement Framework emphasises effective contract management as part of the general procurement processes.

“Obviously, the Procurement Regulations for borrowers is not limited to the selection process but go beyond and above contact awards and signing. Therefore, contract management planning must be considered in the development phase of the project's procurement strategy and should be considered part of the overall approach to procurement.”

Buniyaminu Abdul Kadiri, Senior Procurement Specialist at the World Bank, also indicated that “a lot of successes are seen in the contract award processes on projects, but poor contract management is quite pervasive within the region, especially on high-value infrastructure contracts. These contract management lapses usually lead to contract duration overruns, interest on delayed payments, claims on idle time as well as resources, which affect the delivery of project development objectives and lead to slow disbursements. This collaboration will thus go a long way to improve delivery on World Bank-funded projects.”