Abstracts

Key Performance Indicators in the Construction Industry in Khartoum-Sudan (Dr. Eltahir Elshaikh, Dr. Salma Mahmoud, Ahmed Omar, Audi Noureldin and  Khalid Alkamil)
The construction industry in Sudan is facing a lot of problems and difficulties in meeting the construction’s objectives, because of the absence of key Performance indicators implementation. Which lead to deviation in project’s time, cost and quality. The research was conducted in one main stage (questionnaire surveys). To determine the most significant key performance indicators in the construction sector. 32 key performance indicators at the construction project phase and 38 key performance indicators at the construction company phase were studied thoroughly collecting respondent’s responses. 79 respondents took part and stratified sample comprising (16) consultants, (32) contractors, (27) owners and (4) others was used.  The results indicated that the top ten key performance indicators at the project level were team experience, Customer satisfaction, safety, Training, time and cost deviation, budget, resources, risks, cost of implementation and Planning period. Moreover, the top ten key performance indicators at the company level were stability, employee satisfaction, customer satisfaction, safety, continuance training, quality, work efficiency, renewal and education, system efficient and work review.
Keywords: Construction industry, key performance index, Sudan.

Changing the Mindset: The Cultural and Institutional Changes for an Industrial and High-Tech Sudan (Dr. Osman Tangasawi)
Purpose: Exploring the required cultural and institutional changes needed to transform the Sudanese society into a high-tech and industrialised society.
Approach: The paper endeavours to draw lessons from the experiences of industrialised and high-tech societies by reviewing selected published literature on the topic.
Findings: Success of industrialised and high-tech societies rested upon certain cultural traits. A collective and inclusive effort is needed to bring these traits into the Sudanese cultural landscape through education, social media, mosques, public lectures, etc. Institutional changes needed for the industrialisation process cannot be implemented without strong supporting cultural foundations.
Social implications: The paper could act as a catalyst for more in-depth research on the topic that kick-start a cultural overhaul process.
Value: The paper emphasises the importance of cultural attitudes as a foundation for Industrialisation; it also stresses that the process of change is a collective effort based on a bottom-up approach.
Keywords: Culture, Education, Development, Bottom-up approach, Industrialisation, Industrial Revolution, Society.

Re-Building the Industrial Sector of the Sudan (Dr. Adil Ahmed Dafa’Alla)
Purpose: As a result of political instability, corruption, mismanagement and maladministration since independence, the Sudanese economy was run down and the industrial fabric of the country dismantled. This paper is a contribution towards re-building the Sudanese industrial sector.
Design/Methodology/Approach: A qualitative approach based on theoretical analysis and critical assessment was used. The raw data was collected from official sources in the Sudan as well as reputable international organisation.
Findings: It was demonstrated that industry can increase the value of the raw materials by many folds, consequently improve economic performance. Formulating industrial strategy, policy and plan to guide industrialisation process is key. A comprehensive path to industrialisation was offered.
Originality/Value: The systematic approach to promote industrialisation as a key tool to fight poverty and achieve high economic growth rate was unique and has not been addressed in this way in the literature so far.
Practical Implications: Adopting the recommendation of this paper can help the country to achieve sustainable economic growth and improve the standard of living to its population.

Study the effect of using the metro as transportation system in Khartoum State – Sudan (Aladin Hamza, Ruba Nasereldin, Mohammed Mustafa, Dr. Eltahir Elshaikh
Low road efficiency, increased number of personal and vehicles and high fuel prices is among the main reasons that led to the transport crisis in Khartoum state. Therefore, the concept of metro was studied and seen the experience of different countries as it is suitable to solve the transportation crisis in Khartoum state. The  metro tracks were proposed based on traffic density, population density and barrier free tracks, 3 main tracks in Khartoum, Bahri and Omdurman, 8 main stations and 35 sub stations were proposed and model of stations were design .the cost of tracks was calculated per kilometer.
Keywords: Metro, Khartoum State, Sudan, transportation  

The role of primary care in tackling covid-19 (Dr. Ishraga Awad)
Primary Care in the UK
Primary Care or general practice is the medial speciality that fronts the health service in the UK. It is the gateway to every individual with a health concern. It contributes hugely to keeping populations healthy throughout the life course. It provides secondary prevention services through the early diagnosis and management of chronic medical conditions like diabetes and high blood pressure and cancer screening services. But its role in primary prevention is perhaps the most important as it delivers childhood and adult immunisation programmes. Sited within communities, primary care is best suited to deliver some interventions aimed at influencing the socio-economic determinants of health. Using a bio-psycho-social model of care, primary care takes a person centred approach that contributes hugely to the health of populations. In fact countries with strong primary care systems have the best population health indicators which is reflected in productivity and prosperity of these nations.
Role in Covid 19
Most people with covid-19 have mild to moderate symptoms that can be managed within primary care. As GPs remain the first point of contact – people with symptoms of covid get advice on self care, safety netting for when their symptoms worsen and mental health support to manage anxiety and other mental health conditions that got worse due to the economic and societal impact of the pandemic. Importantly, people get advice and encouragement to develop and maintain healthy behaviours that hugely affect the outcome of covid infection. This role has evolved during the course of the pandemic as safer models of consulting have become established like telephone and video consultations.
Example from Sudan – the “Alabtaal Family physicians’ Group” initiative
Implications and Outline of a strategy to develop PC in Sudan
Primary care services in Sudan have always been provided albeit to varying levels of coverage. Population health will benefit from a more equitable and wider reaching provision of healthcare services using the primary care model. A strategy to develop these services needs political will, clear professional development pathways and proper financing. It starts with measurement of what we have, identifying gaps and appraising options to close these gaps. Primary care and public health leadership is needed urgently to look into
this and develop sus
tainable solutions.

Utilization of banana waste to produce sustainable concrete in Sudan (Dr. Salma Y. M. Mahmoud, Dr. Altahir A. M. Alshaikh, Hassan A. Almahdi, Abdulrahman Y. Osman, Tarig A. Abelwahab, Ibrahim A. Mohamed, Ayman B. Ahmed, Zoalfagar S. Ibrahim)
Several trails have been reported in the literature to produce eco-friendly concrete. Industrial by-products and agro-wastes are used in different forms for replacement of any of the concrete ingredients to reduce the negative environmental impact.  This study utilized banana wastes to investigate their potential usefulness as an option to contribute to sustainable construction. Banana peels powder, leaves ash and truck fibers were used in different concrete mix scenarios and the effect of their inclusion on some properties was tested. Banana powder was added as an admixture in (1%,1.4%,1.8%) of cement weight but it was not possible to achieve the targeted strength. Then the leaves ash was once included in replacement for cement and another time as an additive. An increase in the compressive strength was achieved with the inclusion of the leaves’ ash in the range of 6.4-7.1%. Banana fibers were added in different proportions (0.2, 0.35, 0.5%) and the results showed 24% increase in the 28-days compressive strength at 5% fiber content.
Keywords: concrete, sustainability, banana powder, banana peel, banana fibers, compressive strength.

2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Milieu of Wave 1&2 in Sudan: Paving the road for urgent rapid test and unveil hidden story to tell (Dr. Nadir Abuzeid) 
Infrastructure of laboratory diagnosis of viral diseases often need especially settings, equipments, expertise and strict laboratory methods. In Sudan, as in most developing countries, viral diseases are mostly diagnosed by manifestation and history of patients. As most viral infections are self-limiting and there is no specific treatment for most of them, laboratory diagnosis has not been concerning for strengthen, particularly in public sector until the current pandemic of COVID-19. During this pandemic the gap of health sector needs for a well-equipped clinical virology laboratory is urgently raised as a national security issue. The purpose of the study to claim the weakness of the various diagnostics methods for delaying confirmatory result and to improve rapid, sensitive and specific diagnostics test and laboratory diagnostics remarks for controlling outbreak and mortality rate in Sudan.
Keywords: COVID-19, Coronavirus, virus disease diagnosis, Sudan.

Networks of Diaspora initiatives (Dr. Huda Hassan Mohamed)
The Covid-19 pandemic prevention and control showed that the most important approach is to build a pragmatic solution. This need to be supported by having a joint up approach of working with and between global networks. The Sudanese diaspora have showed strong passion and leadership to support the population in Sudan to control this pandemic. These networks encompass a wide range of disciplines medical, biomedical and social networks and other sectors. There are networks which is specific to one country, joint up approach with a number of diaspora from a number of countries working together. There are active networks in Sudan which managed to build Covid-19 pandemic needs an extended system which works across several networks. This type of network would need to provide evidence-based initiatives to control it. The main initiatives these networks have been provided is mainly supporting capacity building, medical supplies, drugs and personal protective equipment. The main networks which have started since the first wave providing support are from the gulf area; Saudi Arabis and Qatar. In Europe, the UK, Germany, Holland and the Republic of Ireland have been at the frontline of support to Sudan. The other model of working is by theme area; research, academic links, curative and prevention and control. The most active diaspora networks in the area of research is the COVID-19 Sudan Research Group. This academic network is a collaboration community volunteers in Sudan and public health academics at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of Khartoum, and King’s College London. This initiative is supported by the UK AID programme and have collaboration with Sudanese civil society organisations. In UK the Sudan Doctors Union started supporting and networking with organisations and governmental sectors since the beginning of the first wave. These include medical supply, health promotion materials and personal protective equipment. The same area os support were from Qatar Medical Doctors Union and Jesr Alata in Saudi Arabia. There are many challenges and problems that limited the work of the diaspora. The main issues were mainly operational problems e.g. shipping, storage facilities in Sudan and in the diaspora area. There is problem with sustainability as most of these initiatives were one of projects. It was not based on need and supply but was opportunistic in nature. It did not meet the huge needs of the country to control the pandemic across the whole country. Most of it were area specific according to the demand of the people working in states which are not priority. Officials managed to organise the joint programmes and made it easy for the diaspora to organise it in Sudan.

COVID secure settings and communities (Dr. Muna Abdel Aziz)

Everyone knows the key messages now to stop the spread.

These are the killer assumptions.

To start a change, you must start where you are and do what you can. We are all responsible for what we do and we are especially responsible for what other people see us doing.

It is well known that we are influenced by what other people think of us and that we like to follow what ‘most other people are doing’.

So, if we want to be seen to do the right thing, then we should set the example ourselves.

The answers to these questions cannot be preached from an expert telling ‘other people’ what to do. The answers can only come from you yourself, and if you need advice on what to do, then we are here to help. If you need your good work to be promoted and supported, please get in touch. We are looking for the small business federations, the youth in villages and quarters, we a
re looking for volunteers and organisations to come together.

We are more likely to change our habits at the time of most challenge and disruption. To create a sustainable change, you must Start where you are, Do what you can, and Grow your network for greatest impact.

Remember we can only do what we can – what we can’t do was never going to happen.

Every small change you start can make a huge difference.

Introduction to the Faculty of Public Health Special Interest Group for Sudan (Dr. Andy Beckingham)

The Sudan Special Interest Group (SIG) works under the auspices of the UK Faculty of Public Health, comprising mostly Sudanese diaspora with extensive experience covering a great many aspect of Public Health work. The Faculty of Public Health has a Memorandum of Understanding with Sudan’s Public Health Institute, and it is the SIG members who for some years have conducted that work in partnership with many Sudanese institutions and colleagues, to improve population health and reduce inequalities.

SIG members – who have work over long periods in Sudan, the UK and other countries, leading or contributing to a wide range of health initiatives in Sudan, or carrying out the work itself. These include

Members work closely with individuals, public health agencies and groups, and universities across Sudan. In 2020-21, SIG members see contributing to Sudan’s pandemic management as the priority for their work.

One (non-Sudanese) SIG member worked in Sudan in 2015 and 2018 to co-lead two projects on health professions development with the FMoH, under the MoU, and in this presentation will report on his experience.

Risk management: the approach followed by the construction industry in Sudan (Mohammed Abdelrahman and Dr. Salma Mahmoud)

Construction projects’ execution in Sudan is often associated with some level of risk.  This work aimed at identifying and evaluating risk factors that pose negative impact on construction projects’ cost and time and it also attempted to uncover the risk management procedures adopted by the involved project parties.  An industry-wide survey employing a questionnaire was conducted and a stratified sample comprising 92 respondents was selected. The results have exhibited a set of different risk factors identified by the differ
ent parties and accordingly their impact on projects cost and time were weighted accordingly. It was observed that the lack of the necessary knowledge, experience and mutual understanding regarding risk management among stakeholders, resulted in overlooking it as part of the organization culture. It was evident that there is no stable framework or precise procedures followed for risk management however; contractors were found to be more willing to work with formal risk management frameworks while consultants have shown less interest despite the fact that they adopt some informal procedures to deal with risk mitigation. Keywords: Construction risk, Project performance, Risk management, Sudan

Leadership at different levels to manage COVID-19 (Dr. Mayada Abu Affan)
Introduction: COVID-19 as a global pandemic presented a real challenge for every healthcare system; from the most sophisticated to the most under-developed systems. The World was not prepared for a problem with such a scale. The pandemic presented many challenges; highly spreadable infection with no treatment that works or readily available vaccine, a sudden need for personal protective equipment and other resources at a scale and sudden pressure of hospitals and other healthcare settings. Furthermore, reducing the spread f the infection relies heavily on population compliance and behavioural change. The psychological and economic impact of the lockdown are immense.
Method: This presentation is based on reflections and views of many leaders working in managing COVID-19 in the UK on what aspects and styles of leadership they found necessary and effective in managing the pandemic and how they managed to keep their staff motivated and able manage the ever rising workload
Results: Four 4 main aspects of leadership has been found essential to manage a global pandemic of such a scale;

The session covers how these leadership styles contribute to managing such a pandemic covering the Why, What and So What.

Rationalizing techniques of electrical consumption in Khartoum State (Yasmine Osman Mohammed Abdelrahman)

In recent times, the total consumption of electrical energy has become very large, due to the development that is taking place in the world, and therefore we must think about facing this situation and take the necessary measures to reduce the consumption of electric energy and adopt modern and environmentally friendly rationalization techniques, thus reducing consumption, which results in reducing the costs of exchange in All sectors (residential – commercial – industrial – health … etc.). The paper focuses on studying electrical energy consumption in the residential sector, especially in Khartoum State (Greater Khartoum), which represents the largest sector among all other sectors. Emphasis will be placed on implementing some of the agendas contained in the New Urban Agenda that were launched at the Quito conference on the topic of sustainability and urban development. The paper aims to reduce electrical energy consumption in the residential sector and eliminate the phenomenon of sick buildings that arise from air-conditioning and industrial lighting. It also aims to apply techniques and principles of sustainability in the design of residential buildings that reduce and rationalize the consumption of electric energy. The study concluded with several results, the most important of which is that the application of principles and techniques of sustainability and sustainable design in residential buildings (inner courtyard – home gardens – orientation – roof garden …) works to reduce the total consumption of electrical energy, and that the use of solar panels in obtaining electrical energy, A major role in reducing consumption, although the initial cost is large, but the operating cost is low in the long run, and sustainability techniques can be applied to all urban society according to the technology used and the individual’s consumption and energy needs. Keywords: Rationalizing, reduce, electrical consumption, sustainability.