The IDI hosted an online lessons learnt workshop using the eLearning Platform from 15-24 July 2020. As with other recent events, this workshop was held in a virtual format due to Covid-19. A total of 84 participants from ASOSAI (Thailand, Mongolia, Philippines, Laos, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Bhutan, Maldives, Pakistan and Vietnam), PASAI (Cooks Island, Solomon Island, Tonga, Samoa and Vanuatu) and AFROSAI-E (Nigeria, Eswatini, Eritrea, Uganda and Rwanda) took part in the event.
The workshop was aimed at assessing the goals and objectives pursued by the SAIs, identification of areas of improvement or needing additional effort, identification of challenges and possible responses to the challenges. The overall aim was for SAI teams to share their experiences in the implementation of stakeholder engagement strategies developed through the IDI Intervention- SAIs engaging with stakeholders whose objective was greater audit impact through effective stakeholder engagement.
The entire session was recorded, and the recordings shared with the participants. This gave an opportunity for other SAIs that could not join due to time differences to follow the proceedings and contribute.
What did the SAI teams share?
During the workshop, the SAI teams shared their experiences in implementing their various stakeholder engagement strategies. The key areas shared included, the challenges faced the success factors that have contributed to the achievement of results and what could have been done better during the training interventions and implementation of the strategies. The team further shared on how this intervention can be sustained – what SAIs need to do and what other SAI Partners can do.
Some of the suggestions and feedback received from the participants as far as the training and implementation of the stakeholder engagement strategies developed by SAIs were:
- Developing monitoring mechanisms that help SAI teams to track progress on the implementation of the strategies motivates the staff and also made it easier for the team to report progress.
- IDI is encouraged to create a platform for sharing of SAIs experiences over the period time.
- Stakeholder engagement should cut across all the SAI functions if it is to create the desired outcome- all SAI staff need to be involved and sensitized.
- The twinning of SAI teams through exchange visits in a bid to learn and share experiences bring an added value to SAIs especially the pairing between SAIs who are at different levels of engagement.
- Buy-in from SAI management was one of the key success factors in enhancing stakeholder engagement in SAIs and the IDI strategy of signing commitments and agreements greatly contributed to the SAI achieving most of the deliverables.
- The signing of cooperation agreement at a high level (AGs at SAIs) has secured management ownership of stakeholder engagement and consistent commitment of SAI towards the program
- The design of the whole program as task oriented, leading to outputs and milestones, was important factor for the effectiveness of the program
- The initial training delivered was insightful in terms of familiarizing participants with the concept of stakeholder management, analysis of stakeholders, and the steps in drafting a plan
- Availability of dedicated and competent facilitators who reviewed the draft plans was very constructive and fruitful
- The combination of different countries helped us to gain experience from different SAIs
- The programme created awareness on significance of stakeholder engagement.
- Bringing together of communication experts and auditors from across the globe allowed for sharing of experiences and learning from each other.
- Involvement of senior SAI officials made management buy-in easier.
- The mixing of participants from both audit and communication disciplines enhances collaboration.
Participants also discussed how to sustain stakeholder engagement practices in their respective SAIs that was introduced through this intervention
- Including stakeholder engagement as part of the SAIs operation plans and have it clearly linked to the SAI Strategic plan so that it can contribute to the effectiveness of enhanced engagement.
- incorporating the stakeholder engagement planned activities in the annual operational plan of the SAI and linking it to the strategic plan.
- By closely monitoring and evaluating the plans against actual implementation
- Follow-up by the IDI on the progress of the SAI
- Creation of a working group or having Refresher courses / workshops
- Assistance in securing funding for stakeholder engagement
- Provide assistance such as trainings or supports if there’s any issues raised from the SAI in the implementation of the strategies.
IDI is thankful to the commitment of SAIs that participated in this workshop considering the differences in time.
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| For more information about the SAI Engaging With Stakeholders initiative, please see the webpage here. |  |