CDBB Week 2019 International Blog: Peru

Peru is working with CDBB International on its path towards digital and sustainable transformation. In the first CDBB Week 2019 International Blog Gianina Caballero, Programme & Project Coordinator for the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO)in Peru sets out the benefits of collaboration.

Peru is currently one of the fastest growing economies in Latin America. The country has enjoyed a decade of strong economic development and this robust growth coupled with solid macroeconomic and structural reforms have played a key role in helping to close the income gap with the larger regional economies – and to significantly reduce poverty.

Infrastructure gap

To ensure long-term growth for Peru, adequate planning and investment in infrastructure are essential. However, Peru has faced challenges leading to delays on large projects and, following floods associated with the El Niño phenomenon, the country has also suffered significant damage to its infrastructure. According to the 2018 Competitiveness Index of the World Economic Forum, Peru has one of the poorest general infrastructures in the region, especially roads, and Peru’s National Infrastructure Development Association estimates that US$160 billion is needed to close the infrastructure gap.

The British Government has been working closely with Peru through a government-to-government agreement to support the delivery of infrastructure for the Panamerican and Para Panamerican Games. Through this process, different actors have become familiar with methodologies used in the UK to ensure efficient and transparent delivery of infrastructure projects. The ambition is for these methodologies to be used for the other large infrastructure projects that Peru needs to develop to boost its competitiveness and productivity.

UK-Peru Infrastructure Task Force

In response to this demand to share experiences and best practices of using different delivery models, last November the UK-Peru Infrastructure Task Force was created, and Building Information Modeling (BIM), was identified as one of the priority areas for the Task Force to focus on. Following this work, on 13 August the vice-Minister for the Ministry of Economy & Finance (MEF) highlighted the importance of BIM in delivering the PanAm Games on-time. Building on this impressive feat and the work of the Infrastructure Task Force, Peru have announced they will publish a national plan to introduce BIM to public infrastructure projects by 2024-25, published in SEMANAeconomica.

When the Centre for Digital Built Britain (CDBB) started working with Peru to give technical advice to the Peruvian government, many areas for collaboration were identified, including: capacity building; developing a common framework for cooperation between the different actors involved (public, private sector and academia); and improving the regulatory, institutional and methodological framework. CDBB has helped Peru to:

• shape the BIM strategy, as well as lay down the guidelines for its gradual implementation in the main government departments

• define the roles between the different players

• build a public investment policy

• guide the Ministry of Economy and Finance in its work to become the lead across government for this issue.

One of the direct results of this collaboration will be the launch and publication of the BIM Peru Plan, and since the scope of the BIM methodology is transversal, it will be implemented in the prioritised list of the recently defined National Infrastructure Plan projects, tackling Peru’s infrastructure gap.

We believe the changes Peru is making to support the transition of its construction industry to one that uses BIM and other methodologies that support efficiency and transparency will enable the UK to invest and compete in Peru.

Strategic partner

The Peruvian Government views CDBB as a strategic partner for the wider implementation of BIM in Peru. The technical advice and support of CDBB has generated positive expectations with stakeholders and set the path towards digital transformation in the country. Implementation is seen as a tool to accelerate delivery of infrastructure projects in a transparent manner and will help to identify which changes in the norms and regulations of the current Peruvian system are needed for the efficient implementation of infrastructure projects.

I would summarise the experience of working with CDBB with reference to a quote by Sir Isaac Newton: "Unity is variety, and variety in unity is the supreme law of the universe". In that sense I think that in order to undergo the successful implementation of BIM in Peru it is necessary for us to have a reliable partner on our side, who has expertise and who shares the same vision. CDBB is certainly one of them.