The Inaugural BBCBE Built Environment Indaba 2024, hosted by the Black Business Council in the Built Environment (BBCBE), was a pivotal event addressing South Africa’s built environment sector. The BBCBE, a non-racial and non-political organisation, focuses on uniting black contractors, manufacturers, suppliers, and professionals to rectify historical inequalities and boost the participation of black businesses in the mainstream economy.
The 2025 Built Environment Indaba will focus on key sectors the economy such as Energy Infrastructure, Water Infrastructure, Road and Bridge Infrastructure, Transport and Logistics Infrastructure, ICT Infrastructure, Circular Economic Infrastructure, Black Industrialization, Human Settlements, Social Infrastructure, Petrochemical Infrastructure, and aggressive skills development initiatives.
We recognise that the challenges facing the built environment industry are extensive and complex, making it difficult for BBCBE to address them effectively on its own. This has underscored the need for collaboration by bringing together industry practitioners, academics, government officials, and representatives from infrastructure development ministries to convene at the Built Environment Indaba. This platform enables collective engagement, discussion, and solution development for a wide range of pressing issues. These include the slow pace of transformation, procurement reforms, incomplete projects, aging infrastructure, water and sanitation concerns, road and rail networks, load and water shedding, road network maintenance and construction, and the dismantling and redirection of apartheid-era spatial planning. Collaboration is the way forward.
The Built Environment Indaba serves as a vital platform for fostering collaboration among the public and private sectors, academia, researchers, civil society, and labour. Its primary objective is to address South Africa’s pressing challenges related to infrastructure development, financing and delivery across the infrastructure cluster and associated sectors.
The Indaba aims to drive innovation by exploring and developing practical financing and delivery solutions in key network economy sectors.
The event also seeks to address critical issues within infrastructure development, focusing on key sectors such as roads and transport, energy, and water security, human settlements, circular economy, ICT and social infrastructure. Through bringing together diverse stakeholders, the Indaba aims to create actionable strategies that improve infrastructure delivery, optimize procurement processes, and develop the necessary skills to support sustainable growth. This collaborative approach will drive economic transformation, create jobs, and ensure the long-term viability of the built environment in South Africa.
The indaba intends to bring together key leaders in the public sector, private sector, academia, civil society, labour, SOEs, investment funds, fund managers and industry leaders in all sectors of the Built Environment to a singular platform where built environment solutions and opportunities could be articulated and advanced. The target for the 2025 Built Environment Indaba is to attract approximately 1000 to 1200 active delegates daily for the two days duration of the indaba, to participate in the plenary, panel discussions and networking sessions.