At a gala dinner event held in Geneva on 12 September 2022, the International Federation of Consulting Engineers FIDIC announced the three winners of the Award “Outstanding Project of the Year” in the three categories small, medium and large. Our Managing Director Dr.-Ing. Ralf Meyerhoff participated on behalf of CES and had the honour of receiving the coveted trophy for small projects.

Despite the seamless and highly successful implementation of the project and the great impact it had on the beneficiary population, the award came a bit as a surprise, as Project Director Matthias Fritz pointed out: “The project is not a typical civil engineering project and we prevailed against major international competition. Usually, prizes go to major infrastructure projects such as bridges, airports or tunnels. In our case, however, the special challenges in the context of international cooperation were recognised. The achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals has also become especially prominent.”

Indeed, this year’s 28 shortlisted projects were covering all the 17 SDGs goals across a significant range of project values.

FIDIC CEO Dr. Nelson Ogunshakin emphasized during his speech: “The strength of this year’s winners is a testament to the enduring excellence of the work of consulting engineers and the value that our industry brings to society by delivering excellent construction and infrastructure projects that transform people’s lives.”

Sustainable Land Management in Somaliland is a project to save the Biji catchment area from erosion, and to improve rainwater harvesting and storage of water for drinking, food security and livestock. This catchment area links to aquifers that represent the main water resource for the region’s population, making recharge of these aquifers a vital aim.

Today is World Oceans Day! Let’s raise awareness about the importance of protecting and conserving the world’s oceans and its crucial importance in sustaining a healthy planet.

World Oceans Day as a global celebration, it seeks to bring people and organizations together across the globe with the joint spirit to help protecting and conserving the oceans. On this day, people around our blue planet celebrate and honor our ocean, which connects us all.

This year’s theme, „Awaken New Depths“ highlights the importance of humans and how they treat our oceans. Despite our profound dependence on it, our understanding of the ocean pales in comparison to its vastness.

The ocean sustains humanity and all life on our planet. Despite our utter reliance on it, we have only ever explored around 10% of it, the rest is still unexplored. While we know little of the ocean compared to its immense vastness, what we do know is that the consequences of our actions are evident throughout its waters.

Yet, the repercussions of our actions reverberate throughout its depths. The evidence of the ocean’s perilous state is unequivocal, yet each year, humanity persists in making shortsighted decisions that exacerbate the risk of its demise, as well as our own.There’s no room for ignorance or neglect. It’s imperative that we urgently transform our relationship with the ocean, recognizing that our efforts thus far have barely scratched the surface. To catalyze widespread action for the ocean’s well-being, we must delve deeper into our understanding and commitment.

The oceans cover around 71% of the earth’s surface and is deeply connected to one of the United Nations‘ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), SDG14: Life below water.

This sustainability goal aims to significantly reduce pollution in the oceans and seas, particularly concerning nutrients and (plastic) waste. This includes reducing acidification, sustainably managing coastal ecosystems and fish stocks, and establishing marine protected areas. It seeks to expand scientific knowledge and recognize the Law of the Sea as a legal framework for the protection and sustainable use of the seas and oceans.

CES actively participates in advancing the UN Sustainable Development Goals, recognizing them as interconnected objectives for a sustainable future. As our company’s main focuses are water supply, wastewater, hydraulic engineering and public infrastructure we feel deeply connected with water and everything connected to it. With our projects we foster sustainability as much as possible and we are very aware of the fact, that clean, accessible water is a fundamental right. Reliable water supply is vital for sustainable social and economic prosperity. We can only rely on water as a resource when we, as a society, care about our oceans, rivers, lakes, springs and all other natural sources of water. To achieve this, we need to take on responsible and care for our oceans and the environment in general.

At CES, we are proud to be able to make our contribution in these important areas!

Quality Education is one of the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. Education is a key factor to escaping poverty. Despite progress made in the last decade, nearly one fifth of the global population in the relevant age group has no access to schools. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic now jeopardizes hard won gains made in improving global education.

In this context it is even more important that in Niger, one of the poorest countries worldwide, more than 200 new classrooms could be handed over to the beneficiaries despite the pandemic in the final stage of the construction.

The project was carried out in Niamey as well as in the rural regions of Tillabéri and Tahoua, both partly very remote and characterised by unstable security. It included the construction of primary school classrooms, latrines and housing for teachers, as well as equipping school furniture and equipment for servicing, maintenance and education. The project created 126 classrooms in Niamey and 120 classrooms in the rural regions of Tillabéry and Tahoua, providing a total of 12,600 school places in 41 primary schools.

The Programme further included accompanying measures for the promotion of girls’ schooling as well as strengthening the communities, namely by empowering the local parent committees in the creation of activities in the new school buildings to generate additional income. These measures contribute to more confidence in the value of education and to solving the problems of the schooling of their children.

Since 1980, the assistant meeting has been held annually. It serves as a forum for exchanging research topics in the areas of water resources and water supply, urban hydrology and urban drainage, wastewater treatment, and resource recovery. These topics are presented by the participating institutes and professorships and subsequently discussed among the participants. The event provides an excellent opportunity for profound knowledge exchange and networking for doctoral students and research staff. Thus, this meeting constitutes an important building block for young scientists in shaping their careers and future professional lives.

CES‘ expertise covers the sectors of water supply, wastewater, hydraulic engineering, and public infrastructure. As our company’s headquarters is based in Braunschweig, and the Technical University Braunschweig offers various engineering studies, and our CES team members are involved in some lectures, we are more than happy to sponsor the event. The event constitutes an important building block for young scientists in shaping their careers and future professional lives. In 2024, the event will take place from September 11th to 14th in Braunschweig, providing the opportunity for many young talented people to exchange ideas and knowledge. CES wishes all participants of this year’s assistant meeting an instructive, enriching, and interesting time. It is our pleasure to support the Organisation for Sponsorship of the Institute of Sanitary and Environmental Engineering at the Technical University of Braunschweig e.V.

The project’s objective aims to achieve the modernization of irrigation systems, as well as other measures for the protection of the water resources of the province. The sustainability of the investments is intended to be achieved through the involvement and technical assistance of beneficiary groups and organizations and the establishment of sustainable marketing chains.

Tungurahua is a province with very fertile and productive lands, because of the influence of the volcano with the same name. Agricultural lands cannot be cultivated without supplementary irrigation, which farmers apply mostly in the traditional way by gravity.

Since the available water in the natural sources is no longer sufficient to irrigate all area, the provincial government promoted the change to more efficient pressurized irrigation methods since 2010. During this first phase of the project with assistance of CES, a smart methodology was developed to transform gravity irrigation systems to pressurized irrigation, through which the irrigation area was doubled without increasing water extraction from the sources in the vulnerable paramos.

The very promising results of the pilot phase led to the extension of the project with the now started second phase comprising pressurized irrigation of 2000 hectares from 4000 farmer families. The project is financed by the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) via KfW Development Bank with 19 million Euros and contributions of €3.5 million from the province and €2.5 million from the beneficiaries.

The Consulting services of CES commenced on August 1, 2021 and will have a duration of 4 years. The scope of work comprises among others: provide technical and methodological assistance to the provincial government in the management, planning, implementation, supervision and monitoring of the program at a conceptual, technical, organizational, administrative, and financial level. In addition to technical support in the irrigation area, environmental studies and watershed conservation are important topics in consulting services.

In the meantime, CES has registered a branch office in Ecuador for the execution of the mentioned irrigation project as well as for upcoming project. Besides CES’ presence in Peru and Bolivia with branch offices counting on almost 50 years of sustained and successful activity, our new branch in Ecuador is our third one in Latin America.

We believe in improving living conditions
and that stable and balanced societies need
well-functioning public infrastructure

A multinational team of CES experts did not only supply urgently required building and workman’s material but also carried out several renovation works by themselves. The works were implemented in cooperation with patient local craftsmen. Besides painting works, new benches for the kindergarten were crafted and painted, new basketball hoops and goal nets were installed and more than 20 trees have been planted in the school garden. The upgrade of the sanitary and water supply facilities was done by a local construction company.

This year we decided to use our annual donation for upgrading a school located in El Khatara Al Soghra Village in Sharkia/Egypt. The identification of this specific school was the result of a stages wise selection process.
In a first step, 12 schools were identified. After several site visits to the proposed schools, the Shaeer primary and preparatory School with a nursery in Sharkia Governorate has been selected in cooperation between CES experts and Sharkia PIU. The school is located in El Khatara Al Soghra Village.

A committee for the school renovation has been established to identify the required works. The committee consisted of: School Headmaster, Representatives for school teachers, Representatives for Parents Board and a Representative for Local Municipality Unit “Contact Person” .

The following scope of works was defined:

1. Plumbing and rehabilitation works for several bathrooms at the school building;
2. Outside painting works;
3. Carpentry works for desks and chairs of the nursery;
4. Renovation of the playground, enabling football, basketball and volleyball;
5. Provision of toys for the nursery as well as footballs, volleyballs and basketballs.

The global team of CES thanks all participants for their efforts and commitment.

Groundwater provides almost half of all the drinking water worldwide, about 40% of the water for irrigated agriculture and about 1/3 of the water supply required for industry. It sustains ecosystems, maintains the baseflow of rivers and prevents land subsidence and seawater intrusion. Groundwater is a key resource for the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Agenda for 2030 (UN Water). At CES, the responsible use and protection of groundwater of groundwater is deeply embedded into our understanding of implementing sustainable water supply, wastewater and hydraulic engineering projects.

Water related projects are the core competence of CES. The following examples of our ongoing worldwide projects cover the complete water cycle:

• Supply with groundwater to refugee settlement and host communities in Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda
• Improvement of water supply infrastructure in Laos, Mozambique and Saint Lucia
• Water loss reduction in Peru, Moldova and Tanzania
• Integrated Water Resource Management and irrigation in Armenia, Bolivia and Ecuador
• Institutional strengthening of water and wastewater operators in Albania, Bolivia and Kenia  
• Wastewater projects in Egypt, Somaliland, Vietnam and Zambia
• Sludge Treatment in Ethiopia and Rwanda