Progress towards the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development requires strengthening of national systems for good use of public resources, particularly in countries with weak public financial management and at risk of being left behind. Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) can play a key role in enforcing good governance and curbing corruption. Yet, several SAIs in challenging contexts struggle to play a strong role and have a potential to deliver more impactful audits.
In 2022 the INTOSAI-Donor Cooperation IDC) launched the Global SAI Accountability Initiative (GSAI) to mobilize effective and well-coordinated support to SAIs in challenging contexts. These SAIs often operate in environments that face serious political, economic, and/or social challenges, and are therefore most in need of scaled-up and strengthened support.
In August 2022 four SAIs were selected as beneficiaries. Namely, the SAIs of Dominica, Haiti, Honduras and Kyrgyzstan. The GSAI programme team, led by IDI, then initiated the planning phase with official meetings with beneficiary SAIs and potential partners of support. Meanwhile the IDI Global Foundations Unit assisted with other country case assessments to join the GSAI group. In the end, there were four cases for consideration, and in December the GSAI committee decided to include all. These were the SAIs of Belize, Benin, Lebanon and Tajikistan.
The year 2022 ended successfully with positive reactions from SAIs, peers and financial providers of support as well as with draft country project designs and partner setups for each of the SAIs.
During January 2023, the GSAI team worked on how to build strategic country support groups with adequate financial and technical resources that would be in the best interest for each SAI. The GSAI team also started the planning of the kick-off event, due at the beginning of March, as a hybrid event. This workshop will set the scene and bring the eight SAIs together with potential partners to start their collaboration. This includes getting to know each other, understanding the GSAI approach, the SAI country contexts and baselines for future work, the available modalities of support, and agreeing on key principles for the GSAI development support.
Although there are interested partners for all eight country projects in GSAI, an overarching challenge will be to establish peer-based projects not depending on IDI as manager of funds and implementation partner. Various peer partners are committed to provide support, but partners interested in playing a lead role and be responsible for grant management are less. The GSAI programme is seeking to address this challenge through preparing various partners for such a role, as well as sensitising donors on this challenge, and trying to stimulate a discussion on donor funding models that can work for peer partners with strong competencies for technical support, but hesitant to be responsible for grants.
For more information about the GSAI, follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn and visit our website page here.
For any queries, feel free to contact us at IDI –GSAI Programme team: GSAI@idi.no
In the GSAI programme team, you will find the IDI colleagues:
- Jostein Tellnes – Programme lead, Senior Manager
- Maria Herrero, Programme Coordinator
- Eduardo Ruiz, Programme Manager
- Marcela Hommefoss, Programme manager