Press Information Bureau

Government of India

Ministry of Finance

23-February-2012 16:32 IST

Fourth INTOSAI-Doner Steering Committee Meeting begins at Jaipur

The 4th meeting of the INTOSAI-Donor Steering Committee began today at Jaipur. The three-day meeting is being hosted by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. The earlier three meetings were held in Marakkech, Johannesburg and Washington DC. The meeting is being attended by 49 delegates from 16 SAIs, 11 Donors, 1 Observer and the INTOSAI-Donor Secretariat.

The Jaipur meeting assumes significance as the Comptroller and Auditor General of India is being seen as a major supplier of capacity to the Supreme Audit Institutions which are looking for support in this area. The delegates to this meeting will be given a glimpse of the capacity building potential of Comptroller and Auditor General of India through a presentation on its training infrastructure and the various capacity building projects executed bilaterally by SAI India in developing SAIs.

The International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI) and 15 Donors (multilateral and country) signed in October 2009 a milestone Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to augment and strengthen support to the Supreme Audit Institutions (SAI) community. The MoU recognizes the potential value of SAIs in strengthening governance, accountability and poverty reduction. The MoU provides a common approach to increased strategic focus and coordination for donors and the SAI community in strengthening SAIs in developing countries. This entails: 1) donors mobilizing additional funding for SAI strengthening, 2) increased strategic focus on the important role of SAIs in terms of governance, development and poverty reduction, 3) improved coordination of support to the SAI community, and 4) better and more effective support initiatives.

Support will be provided through a hierarchy of activities, principally at the country level, and then at the regional and INTOSAI global levels. Because the support is to be demand-driven and sustainable, it should be based on strategic and development action plans.

The Steering Committee is jointly chaired by one INTOSAI and one donor representative. Currently, the SAI of Saudi Arabia and the World Bank hold the positions as joint chairs, while the vice chair positions are held by the SAI of the United States and the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID).

The Steering Committee Members are as under:

Donor representatives: African Development Bank, Austria, Belgium, Canada, European Commission, Inter American Development Bank, International Monetary Fund, Ireland, Islamic Development Bank, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden (represented by Swedish National Audit Office), Switzerland, United Kingdom, USA, World Bank

INTOSAI representatives: Cour des Comptes (Morocco), General Auditing Bureau (Saudi Arabia), Government Accountability Office (USA), INTOSAI Development Initiative (Norway), INTOSAI General Secretariat (Austria), Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General (India), Rigsrevisionen (Denmark), AFROSAI Regional Secretariat (Libyan Arab Jamahiriya), ARABOSAI Regional Secretariat (Tunisia), ASOSAI Regional Secretariat (Republic of Korea), CAROSAI Regional Secretariat (Saint Lucia), EUROSAI Regional Secretariat (Spain), OLACEFS Regional Secretariat (Panama), PASAI Regional Secretariat (New Zealand)

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Supreme Audit Institution support: donors and INTOSAI coordinate funding and strategic capacity building under MoU. A Memorandum of Understanding between INTOSAI and donor partners creates a coordinated framework to strengthen Supreme Audit Institutions through mobilised donor funding, strategic focus on governance and development roles, demand-driven sustainable support based on strategic and development action plans, and a hierarchy of country, regional and INTOSAI-global activities. Implementation is overseen by a jointly chaired multilateral Steering Committee composed of donor and INTOSAI representatives to ensure coordinated assistance and strategic oversight.