Kenyan elected president of Commonwealth architects lobby

Kenyan architect Stephen Oundo has been elected President of the Commonwealth Architects Association (CAA). Mr Oundo, who previously served as the National Construction Authority (NCA) chairman, will be the second Kenyan after Philip Kung’u and the third African to head the 59-year-old regional body.

He will serve for a two-year term. He will, however, remain in office for another two years as per the CAA constitution to allow continuity even as the next President prepares to take over.

Mr Kung’u, who was Oundo’s lecturer at the University of Nairobi (UoN), was the President of CAA from 2000 to 2003. The lobby brings together member states from 56 countries of the Commonwealth.

Mr Oundo said his journey to CAA started in 1993 as a student of architecture at the University of Nairobi. CAA has visited the university to validate the programme.

“This is so that anyone who graduates from the institution can practice in the Commonwealth countries because the degree is validated. Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) have also been validated, and are working on ensuring that Technical University of Kenya(TUK) and the Technical University of Mombasa are also validated,” he said.

Mr Oundo spoke to Real Estate during the Continuous Professional Development (CPD) seminar organised by the Board of Registration of Architects and Quantity Surveyors last week in Nairobi.

The meeting was under the theme Artificial Intelligence: Transforming The Built Environment.  

“It was during the 2015 General Assembly in the United Kingdom where also CAA was celebrating its 50 years of existence that my first ascendancy to competitive politics within the association began.  During that time, I was elected as Chairman of Practice with the Council of CAA,” said Mr Oundo, who is also a former President of the Architectural Association of Kenya.

In the 2019 General Assembly, which was held at Mombasa, he was elected as the Vice President of CAA to represent Africa.

In 2022, when the General Assembly was held in Trinidad Tobago, he was elected as the Senior Vice President, which laid the groundwork for his election to the presidency in an event held last month on August 22 in Kigali, Rwanda.