Theme of the Inaugural Conference

"Construction As Catalyst To Spur And Sustain Socio-Economic Growth And Development Of The Ummah"

Objectives of the Conference

Key objectives of the conference include:

* To draw attention to the importance of construction in developing Muslim economies especially in the context of promoting and sustaining socio-economic growth and development;
* To ascertain the current state of the respective construction sectors in the Muslim economies in terms of size, structure, capability, availability of expertise, constraints and deficiencies, etc;
* To propose appropriate strategies urgently required in order to develop / enhance indigenous construction capability of the Muslim economies.
* To produce a full proceedings of the papers submitted.
* To promote the work of the Procurement & Project Delivery Systems Research Unit

Background to the Conference

Construction is significant to all economies. However, it could be argued that construction is more important to a developing economy than to a developed economy. This argument is based on the facts that construction (i) establishes the basic infrastructure that the developing economy urgently requires in order to promote and sustain socio-economic growth and development; and (ii) is a major employer in the economy.

It is to be expected that should the construction sector of an economy lack the capacity to initiate, construct, manage, operate and maintain development projects due to its lack of ability to define, design, select and construct buildings or civil engineering works, a deficiency in construction may occur.

Deficiencies in indigenous construction capacity in many economies have resulted in dependence on imported inputs: construction materials, machinery, skilled manpower and expertise. Prolonged dependence on imports, increasing foreign debt and unfavorable balance-of-payment conditions faced by the economies has drastically reduced their capacity to import these foreign inputs.

It is to be expected that should the construction sector of an economy lack the capacity to initiate, construct, manage, operate and maintain development projects due to its lack of ability to define, design, select and construct buildings or civil engineering works, a deficiency in construction may occur.

The focus of this Conference is to view construction as the catalyst to solve these issues. The cooperation of the richer Muslim economies, the developed nation of the West, Japan, Asia Pacific and elsewhere, the multi-national lending agencies (World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Islamic Development Bank, JBIC, etc) and other more developed nations in lending agencies, practitioners (especially contractors) etc. may be part of the solutions. We believe the solution requires multi-disciplinary in approach where academics, practitioners, policy makers, entrepreneurs, NGOs, in various fields: construction, economics, engineering, law, etc and Muslim and non-Muslim could and should collaborate to help find ways towards improvement.

Important Dates

Submission of abstract

1 February 2009

Notification of acceptance of abstract

1 March 2009

Submission of first draft paper

1 May 2009

Refereeing decision of international panel

1 July 2009

Submission of final paper

29 July 2009

Conference

19-21 October 2009

Submission and Publication of Full Papers

• Full papers must not exceed 10 sides of A4 and must be submitted using the conference paper template.
• Each paper will be sent to two international referees.
• It is a condition of inclusion that at least one of the authors pays the registration fee and attends the conference.
• Only these papers will be accepted for publication and considered for presentation during the conference.