FOREWORD FOR WABER 2012 CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS A big welcome to every participant at this WABER 2012 Conference. Our first three conferences, 2009-11, took place in Accra, Ghana. Nigeria is hosting the WABER Conference for the first time, 24-26 July 2012, and it is a delight to be in this beautiful city of Abuja. Thank you for coming and we hope you enjoy the conference. Time really flies! I still have a vivid recollection of our first event in Accra on 2-3 June 2009. So soon we are having a 4th WABER Conference already. Every credit for the rapid development of the WABER Conference in the last four years should really go to those of you who have participated in the past as well as those attending the conference this year. In the past four years, many of us have become friends through WABER. Many young academics and researchers have also been helped to develop their research work and skills through WABER and thereby found an opportunity to move their careers and ideas forward. The story of WABER just goes to show that we are stronger when we come together and there is nothing we cannot achieve when we work together and support each other. With most of the countries in Africa pushing for development, the WABER Conference provides an essential channel for bringing built environment academics, researchers and practitioners together for the generation of knowledge, interaction and leadership on the key issues that we need to tackle in order to address our challenges and opportunities of the 21st century particularly in relation to the construction sector and built environment. Since 2009, WABER has brought together more than 500 built environment academics, researchers and practitioners to work together towards the development of the built environment field in Africa. We strive to: support young built environment researchers in West Africa (WA) especially to develop their research work and skills through constructive face-to-face interaction with their peers and experienced international academics; supply a platform for more senior academics to network and share ideas on their current research work; and serve as a vehicle for developing the built environment field in Africa. In addition to the 500+ people involved in WABER, we also have about 60 institutions in the WABER Conference network, comprising mainly of universities and polytechnics. This network of people has enabled us to develop a new textbook on “Construction in West Africa” which will be launched at this conference in Abuja. The WABER Book was written by ten academics of West African origin based in six different countries. This contribution is another example of what we can collectively achieve when we work together and combine our ideas. A big thank you to all authors and our partners who have supported us and helped to publish the book. We have engaged in some outreach activities within the past year. In January 2011, some members of our team visited built environment departments in six polytechnics and two universities in Ghana to interact with lecturers and postgraduate students and deliver research workshops. We also donated textbooks to some departmental libraries as a means of supporting students and teaching and learning activities. In August 2011, visits to six universities in Nigeria enabled us to interact directly with staff and students in built environment departments. These visits continue to foster closer interaction with our friends in various institutions. I would like to express our sincere thanks to colleagues in all institutions visited for your warm hospitality. This year’s conference proceedings consist of 125 papers. We initially received and screened 278 abstracts with the help of our Scientific Committee. 182 full papers were eventually submitted and each went through a peer review process. Thus, the papers accepted for publication represent around 68% of full papers received. We congratulate the authors of papers that made it into the proceedings for a job well done. We also thank the 56 members of our Scientific Committee and 84 members of our Review Panel for your expertise and input into the quality of this conference. The published papers cover a wide array of topics including: Building services, Construction design and technology, Construction economics, Construction finance, Contract law, Contracting, Contract administration, Decision support systems, Economic development, Engineering, Energy, Environment, Facilities Management, Health and safety, Housing, Human resources and skills, Information technology, Materials science, Procurement, Project management, Quantity surveying, Real estate and planning, Risk management, Supply chain management, Sustainable technologies, Urban development. As such they reflect various areas of socio-economic development aspirations of countries in West Africa. With most countries in Africa pushing for development, some of the research findings here can play an important role in helping to realize the development aspirations of African economies. An important and impressive statistic is that the 329 authors of the papers in this year’s conference proceedings come from 87 different institutions and 10 different countries. This provides plenty of scope for cross-boundary learning. It also provides for a rich intellectual, international and multicultural blend and platform for networking and developing new knowledge and longer-term collaborations. We hope that all delegates at this conference will make good use of this opportunity. Going forward into the future WABER will develop strategic initiatives for helping more people to develop their work and achieve their potential. The Micheletti & Co. Ltd Prize for Best Masters Research Dissertation is a scheme to recognise and encourage younger researchers. On that note, we wish to record our thanks and gratitude to a number of individuals and organizations who have supported us in various ways: Vector Morrison Ghana Ltd; A-Kon Consults Limited (Ghana); Oladele Construction Ltd (Nigeria); K+H Limited (Ghana); HLB Ltd (Ghana); Laurus Development Partners; PPMC Ltd (Ghana); Micheletti and Co. Ltd; Mr. Michael Kwadwo Frimpong (President of the Africa Association of Quantity Surveyors (AAQS)); Mr. Afolabi Abdulsalam Dania (University of Reading, UK); Professor Kabir Bala (Ahmadu Bello University, Nigeria); Professor Stella Zubairu and a number of our colleagues in Nigeria. A common tradition at academic conferences is to have keynote speakers. We are blessed this year to have some really experienced international academics who will be speaking to us: Professor Roger Flanagan (University of Reading, UK); Dr Roine Leiringer (University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong); Dr Chris Harty (University of Reading, UK); Professor Stella Zubairu (Federal University of Technology, Minna, Nigeria) and Professor Will Hughes (University of Reading, UK). It is great to have these academics contributing a keynote to the conference. I wish to express appreciation to Dr Sena Agyepong, our Regional Organising Director, and members of our LOC particularly Mr Oladele Ishaq for your hard work and capable management of local organising arrangements. Above all, many thanks to all those of you who have come to take part in this conference. Enjoy Abuja and have a safe journey back home. Dr Samuel Laryea School of Construction Management and Engineering University of Reading, UK July 2012