Over 68 exhibitors from around the world would showcase their goods and services to the Nigerian public and the West African market at a water and construction trade show.

The event, which is scheduled to hold from today and ends on Thursday at the International Conference Centre (ICC) in Abuja.The Water Africa and West Africa Building and Construction 2016 exhibition and seminar is a three-day event endorsed by the Federal Ministry of Water Resources, Federal Ministry of Works, Power and Housing, Federal Ministry of Environment, Real Estate Developers Association of Nigeria (REDAN), and the Nigerian Institute of Water Engineers (NIWE), a division of the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE).

The Minister of Water Resources, Engr Suleiman Hussaini Adamu and his counterpart from the Ministry of Works, Power and Housing, Mr Babatunde Raji Fashola, will officially declared the conference open.
Speaking with The Guardian, Managing Director, ACE Event Management UK, Tracey Nolan-Shaw said there would be a number of seminars, two of which will address major challenges facing the water and construction sectors of the economy.
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According to her, the water seminar will look at “Nigeria’s Urban and Rural Water and Sanitation Challenges in the 21st Century” among other topics, towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), pro-poor water delivery and reduction of non-revenue water.
The programme for the Building & Construction seminar will look at “Infrastructural Challenges Facing Nigeria in the 21st Century” to include finance, roads and transport, health and safety, energy efficiency and low-cost housing, at which a number of institutions and agencies would be making presentations.

Nolan-Shaw said: “The whole idea of the seminar is not to say this is exactly what should be done. It’s for people to dialogue, challenge the presenters and ask them what they think is right. But we are not here to say we have the solutions.

“The seminars would provide an ideal opportunity for exhibitors to identify the problems and needs of the water and building industries in region and provide information about products and services.”

She noted that the ambition of ACE Event Management was to create a two-way flow of information for visitors and participants which would help them to analyse their sector needs more precisely and set in place the necessary steps for expansion and improvement in these important areas.

Also speaking, National Programme Coordinator, Nigerian Institute of Water Engineers (NIWE) Engr. Abolade Lawal said the seminar would broaden the professional development of engineers, stressing that it would give them the opportunity to share ideas and finding solutions to some of the challenges being faced by the body.

“It is going to broaden the professional development of engineers and that is the reason why NIWE have agreed to partner with ACE event.

“We are not just partnering, we are presenting papers to broaden the knowledge of those who will be there either policy makers, politicians,” he said

Since it was founded in 1992, ACE Event Management has held conferences and seminars in the fields of agriculture, building and construction, commerce, mining, energy and general trade in several African countries including Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.