Activities of the INTOSAI Working Group on Environmental Auditing

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Activities of theINTOSAI Working Group on
Environmental Auditing

• Ms Kaire Kesküla
• Senior Advisor
• Secretariat of the INTOSAI WGEA

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Outline

• WGEA membership and functioning
• Key WGEA documents completed in 2010
• WGEAs 2011-2013 work plan activities
• incl. preliminary results of the 7th Survey for
  ASOSAI region
• Recent and upcoming meetings
• Overview of Rio20 and the World Congress
• Auditing climate change INTOSAI WGEAs
  perspective

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WGEA membership and functioning (i)

• 72 member SAIs
• WGEA Steering Committee
• Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, Estonia,
  Finland, India, Indonesia, Lesotho, Morocco, New
  Zealand, Norway, Tanzania, United Kingdom, United
  States
• Coordinators of RWGEAs
• - ACAG/PASAI New Zealand
• - AFROSAI Tanzania
• - ARABOSAI Egypt
• - ASOSAI China
• - EUROSAI Norway
• - OLACEFS Argentina

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WGEA membership and functioning (ii)

• Chair Mr Mihkel Oviir, AG, National Audit
  Office of Estonia
• 2nd chairmanship term from 2011
• INTOSAI WGEA Secretariat

Tõnis Saar Secretary General
Margit Lassi Senior Advisor
Kaire Kesküla Senior Advisor
Tuuli Rasso Senior Advisor
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Key WG documents completed in 2010

• Guidelines on EA
• climate change (Norway)
• sustainable energy (Czech Republic)
• forestry (Indonesia)
• minerals and mining (Tanzania)
• fisheries (South Africa)
• environmental accounting (USA)
• Cooperative projects

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2011-2013 WP projects (i)

• Research projects
• Land use/land management practices (Morocco)
• Environmental data (Canada/USA)
• Environment and sustainability reporting
  (Finland)
• Environmental issues associated with
  infrastructure (UK)
• Impact of tourism on wildlife conservation
  (Lesotho).
• Guidance materials
• Integrating fraud and corruption issues to
  environmental auditing (Norway)
• An update of the 2004 document Auditing Water
  Issues Experiences of Supreme Audit Institutions
  (USA).

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2011-2013 WP projects (ii)

• Training modules
• auditing climate change (Norway and Estonia) -
  completed
• auditing mining (Tanzania)
• auditing forestry (Indonesia).
• Global Training Facility on EA
• To be hosted by the SAI of India
• Outline of the 1st international
• WGEA training programme prepared
• Course planned for 2013 in Jaipur,
• at the iCED centre.

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2011-2013 WP projects (iii)

• IDI-WGEA transregional cooperative EA capacity
  building programme on forestry
• Programme wrap-up meeting
• held in Võru, Estonia in June 2012
• Draft audit cases and compendium
• completed.
• 7th Survey and Annual Audit Collection
• A total of 118 SAI responses to the Survey
  received
• First Survey draft report prepared
• Annual Audit Collection 2012 will be sent to
  INTOSAI members in
  October 2012.

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7th Survey ASOSAI region

• 32 responses from the region
• Overall expansion of compliance and performance
  audits on environmental topics since 2009
• Planned audit topics for next 3 years forestry
  and timber, climate change
• On average, 1-4 SAI employees engaged in
  environmental auditing
• 66 of SAI respondents plan to increase the
  number of EAs as well as staff conducting EAs
• Notable increase in cooperation between SAIs
  audits on environmental subjects, exchange of
  information and experiences
• Most common barriers for EA lack of
  skills/expertise, lack of environmental data,
  lack of human resources
• Training on EA and environmental issues most
  necessary developments for SAIs.

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2011-2013 WP projects (iv)

• Greenlines
• Volume 15 No. 1 published in June 2012
• INTOSAI WGEA website www.environmental-auditing.or
  g
• Website continuously maintained
• Several enhancements made in July 2012
• New photo gallery
• Greenlines web editor template
• Search engine functionality
• Smaller visual enhancements

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INTOSAI Journal special EA issue

• WGEA Secretariat collaborated
• with GAO USA on a special
• environmental auditing issue
• published in July 2012
• Editorial interview with the WGEAs
• Chair, Mr Oviir
• Contribution articles from SAIs of
• India, Indonesia, USA and regional
• coordinators.

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Recent WGEA meetings

• WG14 and SC11 held in Buenos Aires, Argentina,
  7-11 November 2011
• WG14
• Training seminar Environmental Audit for
• Beginners
• Working sessions on the WP topics
• Keynote addresses by ACCA, INTERPOL, OECD,
  Transparency International, UNEP, World Bank.
• SC11
• Draft projects reviewed and approved
• Consensual support to the candidature of the SAI
  of Indonesia as the chair of INTOSAI WGEA from
  2014 onwards

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Upcoming12th SC meeting

• Scheduled for 3-6 October 2012 in Jaipur, India
• Steering Committee will review all the 2011-2013
  WP project drafts and discuss the next work plan
  for 2014-2016
• SAI of China will present ASOSAI WGEA.

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Upcoming15th WG meeting

• Scheduled for 3-7 June 2013 in Tallinn, Estonia
• Assembly will approve all the completed projects
  and the next work plan for 2014-2016
• Tutorials on the new research papers and guidance
  materials
• SAIs sign up to new project teams
• Unofficial hand-over of the WGEAs chairmanship
  to SAI Indonesia (official at the XXI INCOSAI in
  the end of 2013).

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Rio20 and World Congress on Justice,
Governance and Law (i)

• UN/INTOSAI symposium, July 2011
• INTOSAI invited to contribute to Rio20 by
  Secretary-General of UNCSD
• 2nd half of 2011 - INTOSAI WGEA Survey among all
  189 INTOSAI members (SAIs of Canada and Brazil)
• November 2011 official contribution paper
  submitted in cooperation with INTOSAI General
  Secretariat to the compilation document of Rio20
• 17-20 June 2012 WGEA at the UNEPs World
  Congress on Justice, Governance and Law for
  Environmental Sustainability

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Rio20 and World Congress on Justice,
Governance and Law (ii)

• SAIs of Canada and Brazil prepared a special
  Rio20 report in cooperation with the WGEA
  Secretariat
• Top 10 reasons for poor progress towards
  sustainable development as perceived by SAIs
• Unclear/overlapping responsibilities
• Lack of policy coordination
• Absent/deficient policies and strategies
• Insufficient assessment of the environmental
  effects of governmental policies and programs
• Lack of sustainable development analysis
• Lack of long term planning
• Inadequate financial management of environmental
  policies and programs
• Lack of enforcement of environmental legislation
• Deficient monitoring and reporting systems
• Lack of environmental data

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Rio20 and World Congress on Justice,
Governance and Law (iii)

• Proposals of INTOSAI WGEA to the Rio20
  delegates
• To acknowledge the crucial role Supreme Audit
  Institutions can play in achieving international
  SD goals by identifying the gaps and building
  accountability
• To acknowledge the necessity of improving
  national reporting by including in the annual
  reports of the governments to national
  legislatures information on how international
  environmental commitments are met along with the
  funding of these activities
• To state that generally accepted standardsetting
  bodies of government reporting should establish
  principles and standards for the development of
  environmental accounts and sustainable
  development accounts
• To encourage all countries to develop and
  implement a sustainable development policy that
  is supported by a mid-term action plan,
  performance indicators and an external review
  process

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Rio20 and World Congress on Justice,
Governance and Law (iv)

• INTOSAI WGEA side event Environmental Auditing
  for Better Environmental Governance at the
  official Rio20 venue on 21 June 2012
• Presentation of the WGEAs
• Rio20 report
• Introduction of environment
• audit practices of the SAIs of
• Brazil, Canada and Zambia.

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Rio20 and World Congress on Justice,
Governance and Law (v)

• World Congress on Justice, Governance and Law for
  Environmental Sustainability prior to Rio20
  conference
• WGEA invited by UNEP to co-sponsor the event
• Auditors-General from more than 20 SAIs
  represented
• Participation in the discussions and compilation
  of a Rio20 Declaration on Justice, Governance
  and Law for Environmental Sustainability,
  presented to the Heads of Rio20.

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Auditing climate change INTOSAI WGEAs
perspective
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Auditing climate change main theme of
2008-2010 WP of INTOSAI WGEA

• Auditing the Government Response to Climate
  Change Guidance for Supreme Audit Institutions
  (2010)
• Project Leader SAI of Norway
• Contribution of 16 SAIs (incl. Australia, China,
  Indonesia)
• Guide-based e-learning course at WGEAs website
• Coordinated International Audit on Climate Change
  (2010)
• Project Leader SAI of Canada
• 14 participating SAIs worldwide (ASOSAI
  Indonesia)
• First ever global cooperative audit of
  governments efforts to mitigate or adapt to
  climate change

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WGEAs climate change auditing guide

• Background information on substance, impacts and
  causes of climate change also international
  agreements and national responses.
• Suggested audit approaches - a step-by step
  process, including
• mitigation and adaptation (also including
  science, technology and finance)
• different needs according to different challenges
  and obligations
• all relevant sectors included
• Lessons learned
• Case studies
• Sources of additional information

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Climate change e-learning course

• Available at INTOSAI WGEAs website
• Consists of six Modules
• Module 1 gives an introduction to the climate
  change issue and aims to illustrate why climate
  change is an important field to audit.
• Modules 2 through 4 go through the four-step
  audit process, based on fictional cases for both
  mitigation and adaptation.
• Module 6 is a do-it-yourself tool, where
  auditors will be invited to apply the
  four-step approach to their own national climate
  change issues.

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Coordinated international audit on climate
change

• One of the aims of the project - inspire other
  SAIs to undertake audits of climate change and
  raise awareness of appropriate audit techniques.
• Covered both mitigation and adaptation issues
• Good source for starting to gather ideas on
• What could be the problem areas in managing
  climate change issues
• What could be possible audit topics and
  sub-questions for answering them
• Inside the report 14 abstracts of different
  climate change related audits worldwide many
  short case studies

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Climate change audit practices of SAIs

• 117 climate change related audits in the
  international database of environmental audits on
  the website of INTOSAI WGEA (audits since 2003)
• According to the 7th Survey, climate change
  remains in the focus of SAIs work
• Climate change adaptation an emerging audit topic
  in addition to mitigation
• Regional cooperative audits
• 2009 EUROSAI Audit On Climate Change (10 SAIs)
• 2010 OLACEFS coordinated performance audit on
  the implementation of the United Nations
  Framework Convention on Climate Change (9 SAIs)
• Undergoing EUROSAI cooperative audit on
  adaptation to climate change (9 SAIs, 1 observer)

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Thank you!www.environmental-auditing.orgkaire.
keskula_at_riigikontroll.ee