ISSMGE AFRICA REGION “THE PAST” (Continued)
It is understood that Egypt was the first African member to join the International Society of Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering, as it was then known. South Africa followed in 1948 when the Division of Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering of the South African Institution of Civil Engineers was formed at the 2nd International Conference in Rotterdam.
In the years that followed, a further nine African Member Societies were added including Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Sudan, Tunisia and Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia), Morocco and Mozambique. Sadly the membership of two of these members has since lapsed and only nine societies remain in the African region.
The membership of the International Society comprises member societies from various countries around the world which are grouped into six regions. The various member societies declare their individual membership numbers to the International Society on an annual basis and these numbers are used in the determination of the fees payable to the ISSMGE by the member society. In terms of the number of individual members, the South African member society has always been the largest society in the Africa region, having more individual members than the rest of Africa combined. However, these figures have been distorted by the approaches adopted by the various member societies in registering their individual membership with the ISSMGE. In South Africa, the practice has always been to enrol all individual members of the Geotechnical Division as individual members of the ISSMGE. On the other hand, some member societies elected only to register their senior members, probably in an attempt to reduce the fees payable to the International Society.
In order to encourage member societies to register their full individual membership with the International Society, the ISSMGE scale of fees was revised by resolution of Council in 2005. The new fee scale, although based entirely on a per capita fee, depends on the purchasing power parity of the member country. This was coupled with an obligation to pay for a minimum of thirty individual members per society and rewards for societies with more than 250 individual members. As a result, the individual membership of certain African societies has increased dramatically with Egypt now being the second biggest member society in the region.
COLONIAL INFLUENCES
The majority of the countries in the Africa region started off as colonies of European powers including the United Kingdom, France, Portugal, Belgium and The Netherlands. Inevitably, this has had an effect on the way in which soil mechanics is practiced within the various countries. Even in countries such as Egypt where there was no such colonial power, the practice of soil mechanics has been influenced by the universities attended by senior academics and practitioners, many of these situated abroad.
One of the most immediate influences is the effect of language. It is perfectly natural for the French- speaking countries of northern and western Africa to adopt methods of investigation and design originating from France, for the Portuguese-speaking countries of southern Africa to look to Portugal and Brazil for technical input and for English-speaking countries to be influenced by British practice and standards. Perhaps the most striking example of this colonial influence is the formation, under French patronage, of the Trans-National Committee of African Geotechnical Engineers in 1996.
Le Comité Transnational des Géotechniciens d’Afrique, or CTGA consists of geotechnical engineers from French-speaking African countries where there is no national representation on the International Society. In many of these countries, technical co-operation with France is further strengthened by collaboration at many levels including universities, testing laboratories, government departments and consulting organisations. A brief contribution on the history of the CTGA is appended to this report.
Download ISSMGE Bulletin – Volume 7 Issue 5 (pp. 85-100)
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