About GAMA

GAMA, FIDIC's Group of African Member Associations, has been active since 1994, holding regular Annual Conferences and Annual General Meetings in member countries. It has also held regular lunch meetings at FIDIC Annual Conferences. Since 2003, the lunch meetings have been broadened to become Regional Networking Seminars for consultants interested in business opportunities in Africa.

1. GAMA Documents

GAM operates under:

GAMA Constitution, 12 May 2007 version (approved at the GAMA 2007 General Assembly) WORD; 25 July 2005 version WORD
GAMA By-Laws (May 2007) WORD
GAMA 2005 Business Plan PDF that sets out action plans for the short (2005), medium (2006) and long (2007-2009) terms (see also GAMA 2002 Business Plan RTF).

The business plan has as the GAMA objective: To promote the business interest of GAMA members by providing leadership in the provision of infrastructures in Africa and globally. The plan identified five focus areas:

Access to work
Ability to execute work
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Growth of GAMA
Cooperation among GAMA Members

2. GAMA Vision

To be the recognised voice on consulting engineering in Africa.

With this vision, FIDIC is the voice of consulting engineering in the world, GAMA and similar regional groupings are the voices in the respective regions, while the Member Associations are the voices in their countries.

GAMA specifically covers NEPAD, AfDB, ECOWAS, COMESA, and similar organizations, and establishes policies on issues not covered by FIDIC. In approaching the World Bank and other global and non-regional institutions, GAMA fully aligns with FIDIC's position and policies.

GAMA Member Associations are encouraged to visit the international and regional organisations to promote the business interests of their respective countries, provided that they are consistent with FIDIC and GAMA positions in areas of concurrent responsibilities. In areas where there are no such policies, the associations are free to pursue their independent business interests. This is to recognise the different stages of development, competitive advantages and areas of focus of different countries.

3. Recognized voice

GAMA is the recognised voice of consulting engineering in Africa, while seeking as wide representation as possible.

4. Representation

In addition to representing a large number of countries, GAMA works to ensure substantial industry representation in Member Association countries. Having South Africa, Egypt and Nigeria in GAMA could suggest that the significant volume of trade in Africa is already captured by GAMA representation.

5. Partnerships

GAMA works with complementary associations and organizations with similar objectives, including the Federation of African Consultants, FEAC, and the Federation of Consultants in Islamic Countries, FCIC.

6. GAMA Task Force

GAMA Task Force: the FIDIC Executive Committee agreed to create a GAMA Task Force at its September 2005 meeting in Beijing: the terms of reference RTF (20 September 2005). GAMA TF documents are maintained on the password-protected Internal website at www.fidic.ch. The chair was Bayo Adeola (cpms@alpha.linkserve.com), currently chair of the Association of Consulting Engineers Nigeria. The task force concluded its work in early 2007. GAMA Task Force:

A 2005 survey of national Member Associations (survey form: WORD)
Draft report presented at GAMA 2006 Conference by B. Adeola PPP
Action Plan (July 2006) PDF