Global Projects Face Tremendous Challenges

Photo courtesy Construtora Norberto Odebrecht

Local workers in Panama City transformed a part of town stricken with gangs, frequent flooding and high unemployment.

What can you do when street thugs control the local labor force? Hire the gang leaders to work on your project and offer them steady, paying jobs. That solution was one of the keys to building the Curundu Urban Renovation in Panama City, Panama. The project won the residential category for this year's ENR Global Best Projects Awards.

"Very early in the project, we determined that the gang leaders were the only people that were going to be able to control the local workforce," said Delfim Del Busto, project architect for Brazil-based firm Odebrecht. "So, we actually recruited them to come work for us as leaders within the project. That worked very well and gave very good social results for everyone."

We caught up with some of the winning team members of this and other fascinating global projects at this year's ENR+Dodge Global Construction Summit, held on May 13-14 in New York City. Click on this video or launch the view screen at left to see what the winning teams had to say about their projects, the challenges they faced and how they overcame the hurdles to deliver an award-winning international project.

After a short stint as a freelance contributor to ENR, Tudor joined the editorial staff in 2002 and was a managing editor. His areas of expertise included construction equipment, trucks, tools, materials and global construction. He was a certified crane operator and reported heavy construction news in the U.S. and outside—including Europe, Dubai, India and China.

Post a comment to this article

The Groundbreaking Women in Construction (GWIC) conference is a leading event focusing on empowering women in the construction industry through discussions on leadership, diversity, and career development.

The annual conference features a wide array of topics, including infrastructure law, sustainability, and strategies to overcome industry challenges.

Coinciding with the release of the new 2024 Top 400 Contractors list, this annual webinar dives into the results of the Top 400 survey. We'll bring together a panel of executives from the largest contracting firms to discuss the industry’s pressing issues, from workforce challenges to data security.