(sav.gov.vn) – From April 16 to 18, , the delegation of the State Audit Office of Viet Nam (SAV) lead by the Deputy Auditor-General Nguyen Tuan Anh attended the 26th symposium co-organised by the United Nations (UN) and the International Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI) in Vienna, Austria.
The theme of the Symposium was: “Implementation of SDG 13 on climate action: role, contribution and experience of Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs)”.
The Symposium was co-chaired by the Austrian Court of Audit (ACA) – INTOSAI’s Secretary General, Brazilian Federal Court of Accounts (TCU) – INTOSAI’s Chair and Leader of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), bringing together over 60 SAIs and international partner organizations in the world.
Such the joint symposia which are under the Goal 2 of the INTOSAI Strategic Plan have been organized in biennial intervals in Vienna, Austria with the aim of enhancing capacity for SAIs of developing and transition countries. They have contributed to the research and methodology development in all relevant fields of public sector auditing through experience exchange among participating SAIs. At the interregional level, 25 seminars|symposia on government auditing were organized under the auspices of the UN.
Delivering the opening remark, Dr. Margit Kraker, President of ACA highlighted that “Climate change is not just only the challenge to the habitat but also poses severe threats to the economy, society and politics. All countries over the world have therefore been taking positive actions to cope with the climate change, namely cutting emissions, switching to using renewable energy sources, protecting forests and land, and promoting green technologies”.
According to Dr. Margit Kraker, against that background, SAIs play important role in supervising and assessing policies and solutions implementation related to the climate change in order to safeguard the transparency and accountability of the governments and the related organisations in fulfillment of their environmental commitments. SAIs thereby make recommendations to support the Governments and organisations in amending the respective policies and solutions to more flexibly and effectively respond to the climate change.
The Symposium was held in several panel discussions which placed a special focus on 3 sub-themes: SAI practices in auditing the impact of climate change; Enabling conditions for auditing climate action; and Strengthening climate action – impacts of climate change audits.
The discussions centered on analyzing impacts of climate change audits in financial institutions, food production sector, oil exploitation and fossil fuel production industry, etc. The Symposium welcomed the presentations with the precious experience of SAI France, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Croatia, Madagascar, China, the Netherlands, Poland, etc.
In recent years, the SAV has paid special attention to thematic, performance, environmental and climate change adaptation audits, and integrated these topics and audit types into its annual audit plans. It is one of the key assignments that SAV identified and stated in its Development Strategy by 2030 which was promulgated under Resolution No. 999/2020/UBTVQH14 dated September 16, 2020 with respect to increasing the quality of the environmental, natural disaster prevention and climate change audits.
Participating in this Symposium therefore creates a chance for SAV to obtain related knowledge and experience shared by the seasoned SAIs, to contribute to the Government's overall efforts to respond to the climate change, greenhouse gas emissions elimination and sustainable green development goals achievement./.