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Regional cooperation with supreme audit institutions in East Africa

We assist supreme audit institutions in Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda to help them improve their working methods and reports. Through training and support, we help them to plan, implement and communicate audits effectively, and to develop their communication with politicians and journalists.

Focus areas

Our partnerships with Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda cover several areas.

We help supreme audit institutions to determine how to conduct audits properly from start to finish – how to plan, implement, communicate and follow up on whether anyone uses the audit findings. We help those responsible for quality issues.

We also have training courses on how to write good reports that are straightforward and comprehensible, and we work to determine how to follow up who uses the reports and whether they are useful.

We support our partners in developing their communication to ensure that it is as effective as possible. This includes communicating with politicians and journalists. Our partners explain their top priorities and learn how to plan to ensure that their communication is as effective as possible.

Our colleagues in Kenya have initiated development cooperation related to project management. In this cooperation, we focus on the difference between the line organisation and project organisation. We also discuss how an idea is transformed into a project and what is important to consider in terms of staffing and responsibility within a project. Our support also focuses on resource planning, team management, conflict management, follow-up and ongoing communication with different target groups for the project.

Outcomes

Cooperation with supreme audit institutions in East Africa has led to

  • Networking and exchange of experience between supreme audit institutions, between Auditors General, auditors and other professions.
  • Clearer descriptions and distribution of roles and responsibilities within the authorities to improve the impact of audit findings and to improve relations with parliament.
  • Increased understanding and acceptance of project organisation, which is an important form of support for achieving sustainable results.
  • Practical use of quantitative and qualitative methods that contribute to enhanced quality in audit activities.

Circumstances and challenges

We have long-standing partnerships with supreme audit institutions in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. We are currently supporting them in a joint regional cooperation, which includes Rwanda. The advantage of regional cooperation is that we can help more people, while the participants can learn from each other and build relationships that live on even once our partnership has ended.

Supreme audit institutions in East Africa face different challenges, such as

  • the authorities are not fully financially independent; that is, they may need to obtain the approval of the Ministry of Finance in certain matters;
  • the authorities have insufficient resources both financially and in terms of staffing, putting great pressure on the employees to deliver during peak periods;
  • despite significant progress, authorities still face challenges in the application of audit standards and methodologies.