Echoes of the 11th General Assembly of WCCE

WCCE’s 11th General Assembly of the World Council of Civil Engineers was held in San Jose, Costa Rica from 7 to 10 September 2016, organized by the Association of Civil Engineers of Costa Rica in parallel with its the International Congress of Civil Engineering. These activities were welcomed by the Hon. Minister of Public Works of Costa Rica, Carlos Villalta Villegas. Attendance at WCCE activities by our colleagues in Costa Rica and WCCE delegates was very high and enriched our activities with their experience.

Regarding our General Assembly, various issues were addressed being the major achievements of the meeting as follows:

• Several initiatives are to be developed jointly with UNESCO in the coming months through the signing of a UNESCO – WCCE partnership agreement being among them:
• Publication of monographs on the topic addressed by the International Year of Water initiative for the period 2016-2019.
• Publication of a guide of principles for the seismic protection of heritage buildings
• Also in the field of partnerships with other organizations they presented the following activities.
• A partnership agreement with INBO - International Network of Basin Organizations to work jointly for the identification of river basins as most suitable scope for integrated water resources management.
• Endorsement of Water Governance principles published by the OECD - Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Last but not least, the creation of a Standing Committee on Women in Civil Engineering to be hosted by Portugal aims to become a forum and an example of the different situations of the female civil engineers in the different member countries. In addition to this, WCCE has also appointed a task group of young engineers which will evolve in future assemblies into a Standing Committee.

This Assembly has focused on vindicating WCCE as a global partner with the UN system on the principles presented in the Madrid Declaration signed last March which stated the commitment of civil engineering towards the achievement of UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and our profession’s role in such achievement. 

The Turkish Chamber of Civil Engineers will host our General Assembly in September 2017.