CIOB In Sub-Saharan Africa: A Game Changer in Education Engagements

Sub Sharan Africa (SSA) is a region of strategic importance to the CIOB. Territories including Ghana and South Africa have established local hubs located in Cape Town, Johannesburg and early hub formations in Port Elizabeth and Accra. Our ambitions to develop relations and localised hubs in Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Kenya are in the pipeline. To this end, a growth plan was developed by the Education & Standards directorate to build a wider awareness to CIOB qualifications and products. This has resulted in the recruitment of a Qualifications Liaison Manager in June 2021. 

An introduction to the Qualification Liaison Manager in SSA

Ntando Teddy Khuzwayo has joined the SSA region to work closely with the CIOB Regional Manager, Petra Deveraux, and close associates of the CIOB including accredited universities and chartered professional members (MCIOB and FCIOB) within the landscape currently. Ntando aka. Teddy has a strong background in Higher Education Institutions, student development projects and overall project management expertise.

Since joining the CIOB in June 2021, Teddy has been on a strategic mission to build rapport with key stakeholders and develop new relationships across the board. The following describes some of the leading interventions applied to the SSA region in recent times.

• Consultations – seeking input from CIOB Members including student members on how they would like to see the CIOB deliver and support them in growing their interest in built environment careers and access to the profession. 
• Establishment of cross-university student committees from the University of Cape town (Association of Built Environment); University of Witwatersrand (Wits Student Chapter); and Nelson Mandela University (Construction Management Student Society). 
• Adaptations and embedding of the ‘Education Engagement Model’ to the localised environments, tailored to local preferences, for example meet and greets with stakeholders virtually.
• Development and delivery to the brand-new four-part employability webinar series. The purpose of the four-part employability webinar series is to upskill members in their career paths so they become future industry champions, as the African Proverb says, “Give me a fish and I will eat today, teach me to fish and I will eat for a lifetime”. The webinars included were, a) what built environment recruiters look for in graduates; b) personal branding and creating a professional LinkedIn Profile, c) adapting in the workplace as a graduate and d) industry insights by CIOB’s Tomorrows Leaders champions. The local hub committees played a key part in the design and delivery of these successful webinars. In total over the four-part series, we saw 60 students and 15 industry professions join in from South Africa, Zambia, Ghana and the webinars attracted an international audience from the Middle East and China.
• Empowering the students to become ambassadors and this played a vital role in marketing the engagement sessions at their respective universities.  
• Reinforcing social media engagements using the professional platform LinkedIn. Taking the time to recognise and promote local content, events and actions. Rewarding contributors with the CIOB stamp of approval. To date the SSA regional LinkedIn page has seen a growth of 31% from 250 members in June to 329 on the 15 October 2021. 

To continue the excellent work to support the CIOB in SSA in leading the voice within the construction and built environment sector, plans are being made to carry out strategic engagements with universities, students, industry professionals and key government and non-government related organisations. 

Future Plans: In 2022 you can expect to see some of the following.

• Supporting the chartership of our academic community in SSA through the delivery of Academic Professional Review workshops 
• Delivering localised and international student competitions and CPD events 
• Putting on networking events for students, academics and industry professionals 
• Embedding a form of student mentorship programme for the region
• Sub Saharan Africa Podcasts on key industry topics by students, academics and members

If you would like to work closely with the Qualifications Liaison Manager, Ntando Teddy Khuzwayo, please email via: [email protected]