Closing Address

Since the first of this series of conferences, the emergence of many newly independent countries has been associated with a great broadening in our responsibility as civil engineers. A primary need in all developing countries has been to allot the scant resources available for development in the most effective way to produce the social and economic progress they are all seeking. To our responsibility for designing and constructing civil engineering projects has been added a much wider responsibility of joining with others, planners, administrators and sometimes politicians, in helping to decide what projects are most worth while and on what scale, and how they fit into the general development plans of the country or region concerned. In the past few years a further trend has become evident in the world-wide concern about the often irreparable damage that man may be doing to his environment, and increasingly on how we are to conserve and develop our material resources to be able to cope with the galloping increase in world population.