Establishing Construction Contract Administration Education/Training Program for Developing Countries

Abstract

Major infrastructure development projects in developing countries have been financed from foreign assistance. International donors such as the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank and Japan Bank for International Cooperation have been adopting the conditions of contract prepared by the FIDIC for the construction projects in aid recipient countries. Such international construction projects requires the contracting parties to have contract administration functions in order to achieve the project objectives such as time, cost and quality in a transparent way and ensure the project compliance. However, contract administration is a very undeveloped area of project management in developing countries. On the other hand, Japanese public works use lump sum contract for construction, and bill of quantities and work program are not binding to the contracting parties. Contract administration in construction is not demanded. However, the occurrence of claim events are endemic in construction project and claim/dispute management system is not as transparent as seen in international construction project. A training program on contract administration for international construction project have been developed by Kochi University of Technology in association with Nippon Koei and in cooperation with Japan Bank for International Cooperation to strengthen contract administration in official development assistance project in developing countries and to make Japanese construction professionals familiar with international practice in construction contract administration. 5 trainings have been conducted so far in Japan, Thailand, Mongolia and Sri Lanka. The functions of contract administration, training outputs and its prospect in developing countries and in Japanese construction industry are discussed.