1.1 Liaison meetings were held during the Brighton Congress and in London on 22 January 1999; and it is hoped to organise a further meeting during April. The Secretary-General has continued to lead for FIG at these meetings but in Brighton he was joined by Vice Presidents Robert Foster and Tom Kennie who will be the main FIG points of contact when the US Bureau takes office. FIABCI’s future liaison team is likely to include Christiane Feldhaus (USA), a member of its Executive Committee, and Laurence McCabe (Ireland), President, International Relations Division. Even more important will be the contacts which can now be established on an on-going basis between the Director of the FIG office and the (Paris-based) FIABCI Secretary-General.

1.2 Opportunities for networking will be further enhanced through the linkages which Tom Kennie and Gabriele Dasse, chair of the FIG task force on under-represented groups in surveying, are establishing respectively with John Radcliffe, chair of FIABCI’s academic members circle and Alexander Benedetti, chair, FIABCI young members’ group.

1.3 The South African Institute of Valuers and the South African Property Owners Association hold their 1999 annual meetings immediately after or prior to the FIG working week which has made it difficult for them to input on behalf of FIABCI to that event. However, the President of FIG has been invited to attend the opening of the FIABCI World Congress in Seville on 24 May and to chair a session on the following day; and the Czech organisers of the 2000 working week are planning to accommodate a FIABCI speaker.

2.1 The first contact was initiated by the CIB. Two further meetings established sufficient commonality of interest to warrant the drafting of a memorandum of understanding and this was signed in London in January. A copy is attached.

2.2 At the meeting which immediately followed the signing several areas of co-operation were identified and it was decided to take these forward by way of one or more joint projects. Both organisations are concerned to support sustainable development and to provide help, ideally in partnership with an agency such as the World Bank or the UN, in areas where there are limited resources available for development but where population pressures are high. FIG has access to skills in land management; CIB can contribute skills in housing and construction. Both Agenda 21 and the Global Plan of Action spell out a number of areas where these combined skills could have a significant impact.

2.3 A joint meeting has therefore been arranged on 7 April to formulate a more precise definition of a joint project. FIG will be represented by the President, Paul Munro-Faure, Helge Onsrud and Markku Villikka; a similar number of CIB experts will be led by their Vice President. The outcome of the meeting will be reported verbally to the General Assembly.

3.1 Although the initial links with ICEC were established by FIG’s ad hoc commission on construction economics (see accompanying report at agenda item 30) the leaderships of both organisations agreed that it would be mutually beneficial to enter into a memorandum of understanding and this will be signed at the opening ceremony of the working week in Sun City. A copy is attached.

3.2 The working week, attended as it will be by a representative group of experts from both organisations, will provide the opportunity for identifying some joint projects. For its part FIG will be seeking to involve its full range of property-related skills as well as those specifically concerned with construction economics and management. As in the case of joint initiatives with CIB, two further objectives will be to ensure that FIG/ICEC projects respond to global needs and that they offer opportunities for input by UN or other international agencies.

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