Responding to Crisis

Early in the pandemic, IDI and partners reviewed responses to previous disasters and pandemics, and issued guidance aimed at governments, SAIs and development partners on possible responses to the pandemic. This guidance is captured in the following publications:

• Accountability in a Time of Crisis: lessons learned from previous crises
• 3i Covid-19 Response Actions: financial, compliance and performance auditing during Covid-19
• Covid-19 Implications for SAI Strategic Management
• Long-term responses to Covid-19: building agile, forward-looking, inclusive and resilient SAIs through strategic planning and management
• Covid-19: putting a Gender lens on auditing

Auditing the use of Emergency Financing

Countries all over the world received significant additional funds, from domestic and international sources, to enable scaled-up responses to the Covid-19 pandemic and cover shortfalls from falling domestic revenues. In many countries, the size of the financial flows as well as the changed risks due to emergency spending measures caused auditors to review and amend their audit priorities. For more than 60 countries, financing agreements from international partners placed significant emphasis on conducting appropriate audits and publishing the reports.

Two of IDI’s Covid-19 flagship initiatives responded directly to these issues:

• Transparency, Accountability and Inclusiveness of the Use of Emergency Funding for Covid-19 (TAI Audits) was established as an IDI initiative to support SAIs from 46 countries. Of these, 22 SAIs audited socio-economic packages, 15 audited emergency procurements, and 9 are auditing vaccine rollouts.
  
  
• IDI cooperation with the IMF led to IDI and IMF staff publishing a joint paper focused on understanding the role of SAIs in auditing the domestic budget support of IMF emergency financing. Letters of Intent (LOI) commitments in IMF financing agreements referred to audits in around 63 countries, many of which have now been completed and published.
  
  IDI has prepared several cases studies to highlight the work, findings and challenges from these auditors:
  
  
  • Auditor General’s Department Jamaica
  • Cour des Comptes Madagascar
  • National Audit Office Malawi
  • Audit Service Sierra Leone
  • Auditor General South Africa

IDI and the IMF have been reviewing published audit reports on the use of emergency financing and will publish a paper highlighting common findings and challenges in due course.

In this time of continuing uncertainty and growing government spending, the work of supreme audit institutions is more important than ever. 

IDI is here to support you in your work, providing resources to help you plan and conduct audits under these new conditions.

Things will get better, and SAIs will be part of the solution.

The INTOSAI community and our development partners have been compiling and publishing a wide variety of useful resources for SAIs and external stakeholders operating under these new Covid-19 conditions. Explore the links below for more helpful content.