Home News - Africa Message from the Chair - Africa Regional Network
Message from the Chair - Africa Regional Network
Message from the Chair - Africa Regional Network
September 01, 2011 at 1:43 PM
The Africa Regional Network is still in its formative stages. There are at present three Prospective GBCs and three Associated Groups which have been recognised by WGBC along with an ‘Established’ GBC in South Africa. The role of the Network is to assist GBCs with their development and to provide a hub through which GBCs can communicate, share experiences and explore synergies.
African countries face unique developmental challenges, including unemployment and poverty, lack of skills, and health challenges, and this inevitably has an impact on the nature and role of GBC’s. In response, World GBC jointly with GBCSA, is exploring the development of a ‘Socio Economic Category’ that could “clip in” to standard rating tools to help address some of these challenges.
At the same time, green building is highly relevant to Africa, as it makes more efficient use of scarce urban infrastructure and allows buildings to be more self-contained in the face of frequent services outages.
GBC South Africa is playing the ‘anchor’ role in the African Regional Network and holds an ‘Africa Day’ following its annual Convention. Last year’s was the first, and representatives from seven African countries attended. Thre will aslo be an official Africa Regional Network meeting in Toronto in October, as many of the African GBCs will be in Toronto for the WGBC Congress.
As new GBC groups become more established and start moving along the WGBC “Road Map”, the Africa Regional Network will become more active and is likely to play an important role. There is much work to be done to grow and tailor a GBC network that is relevant and responsive to Africa’s particular needs.
- Bruce Kerswill, Chair, Green Building Council of South Africa
African countries face unique developmental challenges, including unemployment and poverty, lack of skills, and health challenges, and this inevitably has an impact on the nature and role of GBC’s. In response, World GBC jointly with GBCSA, is exploring the development of a ‘Socio Economic Category’ that could “clip in” to standard rating tools to help address some of these challenges.
At the same time, green building is highly relevant to Africa, as it makes more efficient use of scarce urban infrastructure and allows buildings to be more self-contained in the face of frequent services outages.
GBC South Africa is playing the ‘anchor’ role in the African Regional Network and holds an ‘Africa Day’ following its annual Convention. Last year’s was the first, and representatives from seven African countries attended. Thre will aslo be an official Africa Regional Network meeting in Toronto in October, as many of the African GBCs will be in Toronto for the WGBC Congress.
As new GBC groups become more established and start moving along the WGBC “Road Map”, the Africa Regional Network will become more active and is likely to play an important role. There is much work to be done to grow and tailor a GBC network that is relevant and responsive to Africa’s particular needs.
- Bruce Kerswill, Chair, Green Building Council of South Africa
Tags:
