INTOSAI Development Initiative

Supporting effective, accountable and inclusive Supreme Audit Institutions

Somalia – OAGS Peer Support Project 2023 - 2024

IDI, in partnership with AFROSAI-E, supports the Office of the Auditor General of Somalia (OAGS) in achieving key strategic outputs of their 2023 – 2027 strategic plan. This involves peer-based support to overall audit management, financial, compliance and forensic audits, internal governance, stakeholder engagement and legal reform. Funding is provided by the Norwegian government.
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Signing of the OAGS, AFROSAI-E and IDI cooperation agreement 2023 - 2024 in Accra, Ghana

The Office of the Auditor General of the Federal Republic of Somalia (OAGS) has a crucial role in promoting and ensuring good governance in Somalia. The OAGS is responsible to audit all the federal government institutions and the independent enterprises provided with a public private partnership. Over the last five years OAGS has demonstrated its commitment to play a strong role in enhancing public financial management in Somalia. 

The OAGS, IDI and AFROSAI-E has had a close collaboration since 2018. On the basis of the new OAGS strategic plan for 2023-2027, the partners have agreed a new phase of collaboration. The overall objective of the project is to “Enable OAGS to achieve its planned strategic outputs related to core audits and stakeholder engagement for the period 2023-2024.” The project will in particular support OAGS in its work to achieve the following strategic outputs: 

  1. High-quality annual financial audits delivered on time for all MDAs.
  1. High-quality compliance audits delivered annually on major cross-cutting compliance challenges in the MDAs, such as compliance with the procurement regulations.
  1. High-quality forensic audits delivered on main issues of fraud, waste and abuse related to the use of public funds.
  1. OAGS audit results are shared widely in public and there is increased OAGS’s visibility with stakeholders through regular interaction with citizens to increase visibility and for selecting the right audits and controls.
  1. Regular and timely interaction with the Executive on the audit findings, recommendations, and emerging issues.
  1. Regular and timely interaction with the Parliament on audit scrutiny and follow-up. 

Support activities include on-the-job advice for audits and organizational systems and processes, various trainings, and financial support for events and the salary of the AG Special Assistant. While IDI is financially responsible for the project, peers from the SAIs of Uganda and Malawi deliver technical support together with staff of IDI and AFROSAI-E. The OAGS has an active role as lead of the Steering Committee and the project management team. Please see the cooperation agreement for more info on the expected results, roles and responsibilities of the project. 

The EU, World Bank and peer SAIs with their own funding are also key partners of OAGS. The peer support project seeks to have an advisory role for the totality of external support to OAGS, and assist OAGS in their work to create a well-functioning support ecosystem. To succeed in delivering all the strategic outputs of the 2023 – 2027 plan, OAGS will rely on additional support to the peer support project. 

Funding

For 2023 - 2024 funding is provided by the Norwegian embassy in Nairobi and IDI core funds. To read the funding contract click here.

In partnership with AFROSAI-E, IDI supports the Office of the Auditor General of Somalia to implement key strategic priorities. This includes support to ongoing audits, a new legal framework, stronger internal governance, HR-management, professional development, stakeholder engagement and communication and general coordination with partners. Funding is provided by the Norwegian government. 

The Office of the Auditor General of the Federal Republic of Somalia (OAGS) has a crucial role in promoting and ensuring good governance in Somalia. Over the last years OAGS has demonstrated a strong ability to deliver audit results and develop the organization. 

The OAGS, IDI and AFROSAI-E had a joint project for the years 2018 – 2020

There was a good dynamic in the partnership and significant results (see the evaluation report here and an article in the INTOSAI Journal here). 

The current cooperation is for 2021-2022. The overall objective of project is to “Enable OAGS to successfully implement the strategic priorities in the period 2021-22.” The 2021-22 OAGS Strategic Plan has the following six goals: 

  1. Timely, relevant and high-quality audit reports in line with international standards
  2. Strengthening Internal Governance for Efficient and Effective Audit Services
  3. Strengthen external communication and stakeholder relations to ensure audit recommendations are implemented and reports have an impact on governance and accountability
  4. Well qualified and professional staff and management
  5. Sufficient infrastructure and ICT capacity for efficient operations
  6. Amend the old legal framework OAGS currently operates under 

The peer support project will provide support to selected objectives and areas within each goal, contributing to OAGS achieving the goals. Please see the Cooperation agreement for the expected results and roles of the partners. 

To ensure robust and relevant support for all the six strategic goals of OAGS, multiple mechanisms of support are needed in addition to the peer support project. 

The World Bank and other donors are also partners of OAGS. IDI seeks to have an advisory role for the totality of external support and be the responsible provider of peer-support in cooperation with AFROSAI-E.

For 2018-2021 funding is provided by the Norwegian embassy in Nairobi and IDI core funds. To read the funding contract click here

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SAI Somalia internal strategic management workshop Mogadishu 2017
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Annual Meeting in Mogadishu, February 2020, release of the Annual Performance Report

Project Agreements and Reports*

* Please note that the OAGS Strategic Plan 2023 - 2027 that was available from 20 June 2023 to 12 July 2023 has been removed pending updates, and is therefore null and void. The authorised version will be uploaded shortly for you to view. 

Somalia news articles