Global Practice Community

UNEP and GlobalABC are leading and sponsoring a session at the Forum on Innovative Materials and Sustainable Construction in West Africa 28-31 May, Dakar Senegal. The session is entitled "Sustainable Construction and Climate: Perspectives from West Africa" and aims at showcasing policy actions and initiatives led by countries in the region to achieve a low-carbon, high efficient and climate resilient buildings and construction sector as well as challenges faced by the sector to adapt and be more resilient to climate change. 

 

Please find a draft concept note for the GlobalABC session here (by clicking on 'Agenda') and the full forum programme here. The forum is in-person only and don't forget to register!

 

The Forum will bring together architects, building developers, financiers, researchers, NGOs and national and local authorities to share knowledge and innovations on how to build more and better, ways to reduce the climate impact and increase resilience of the construction sector in West Africa. The Forum will cover a wide range of topics going from the environmental impact of construction materials, the application of circularity solutions to the built environment, financing schemes to bring solutions to scale, or innovative sustainable materials locally available. 

 

In addition to this session, the GlobalABC will be organizing a Regional Roundtable for West Africa with country representatives from the region to discuss on the regional implications of international agreements such us the Buildings Breakthrough and the Declaration of Chaillot, the usefulness of the climate action roadmaps on buildings and construction to set a pathway for a more efficient, resilient and low carbon buildings sector, the role of buildings in the next round of updates of the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), the challenges faced by the sector in the region and the support that could be provided by the GlobalABC.

Registration - MICDAO.ORG

Secretariat of the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction (GlobalABC) 
Hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)  

Cities Unit | Mitigation Branch | Climate Change Division

1 Rue Miollis, Building VII, 75015 Paris, France

Email: global.abc@un.org  

www.globalabc.org

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Marina Wray, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP
The American Institute of Architects

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Hi Marina, this is really exciting, thanks so much for sharing it! 

After two trips to Sub-Saharan West Africa, visiting urban and up-country, coastal tropics and the Sahel, I came to see that the housing solutions are as varied as the climate zones, the various peoples' cultures and the locally-available materials. Basically, they have already solved it millenia ago with appropriate tech, at least in the Sahel. This is not breaking news.. See Alexander's "Notes on the Synthesis of Form" regarding what he unfairly labels the unselfconscious [design & construction] method.

In de-foresting areas, this may be where traditional materials & tech need study. For lessons, one need only look to SE Asia where their forests have been burned and clearcut for the various industries starting decades ago, leaving locals to move to concrete masonry and light-gauge metal for their small scale building needs including housing. Malaysia's rainforests are pretty much gone, clearcut for palm oil plantations. Ditto for Indonesia, except local & foreign corporations burned those down, an easier solution. In Thailand, the tradititonal teak house is impossible to build today - teak exists only in national parks. And what's left is being poached along with all the other valuable rainforest wood and endangered animal species, and smuggled to China. All the valuable rainforest timber left in SE Asia is now being vacuumed up in Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar and trucked to China for furnituremaking, flooring, etc. Since only demand-side management works where no regulatory framework or rule of law exist, architects should not purchase or specify non-FSC certified wood products from SE Asian, S American, and African rainforests. 

I believe the local peoples' use of timber for buildings is sustainable, and the real challenge today in conserving the region's important forest ecosystems rests with regulating and guarding watchfully the industrial and mining [international] activities.

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Bruce Bradsby
bdb/a
Mesa | Bangkok
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