Collaboration UN Agencies SAIs’ SDG-related Audit Processes

Background  

As we all witness, the world has been undergoing dramatic changes, which affect considerably our environment, economy and society. We see that different regions of the world have been experiencing more or less the similar problems and, naturally, most countries consider the 2030 UN Agenda for Sustainable Development a matter of priority. However, it should also be mentioned that the evaluation and internalization of sustainable development is a complex and multifaceted matter since it requires the understanding of multiobjective variables related to economic, environmental and social issues.  

• In this sense, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are increasingly becoming integral elements of national and sub-national planning and service delivery processes globally.  

And, the citizens are also more aware of the current situation and they have higher expectations which are oriented at seeking an independent and objective oversight, which SAIs can deliver. SAIs have taken this unique responsibility to assist their governments in internalizing the sustainability context in their policies, both with the perspective of preparedness and implementation. Having the relevant oversight on the implementing bodies with this SDG perspective is inevitable for SAIs since they have an important evolving role in enhancing the implementation of sustainable development initiatives. 

• This highlights the importance and criticality of SDG audit processes to assess the performance of the concerned institutions in terms of preparedness for and implementation of SDGs.

At this very point, the importance of the coordinated action between all levels and sectors of the government and all stakeholders is highlighted and UN Agencies, with their experience, information and knowledge as well as their active involvement in the related fields, emerge as the key stakeholders to collaborate in this regard. UN Agencies have an independent perspective and are aware of the work actually done in practice and have a great understanding of how the services, policies, programmes or all the work is delivered in reality.

Observing this, the Turkish Court of Accounts (TCA) had an initial engagement with the UN in Turkey to deliver a set of awareness raising/training sessions in July and September 2021 to the respective auditors from the TCA and other EUROSAI member SAIs (within the scope of Activity 2.6 of EUROSAI TFMA 2020 Work plan) on (i) general concept of SDGs; (ii) their integration, localization and mainstreaming within national/municipal planning/budgeting procedures; and (iii) their alignment with and contribution to the national SDG priorities. 

• Ongoing dialogues between the TCA and the UN in Turkey and TCA’s planning “to develop and disseminate a draft framework for the benefit of the entire EUROSAI community and respective member SAIs to be practiced in the SDG-related audit processes regarding the cooperative relations with UN agencies” called for exploring further opportunities for a systemic cooperation.  

Initial engagement through awareness raising on SDGs revealed the fact that, if planned strategically, a partnership between the SAI of a country and the UN mutually reinforces the SDG related workstreams of both sides; for instance: 

• • UN’s strategic frameworks along with its institutional setup in a country, agency specific mandates/programmatic modalities as well as system-wise frameworks/instruments (coordination, monitoring, results reporting etc.) possess great potential for informing planning and conduct of SDG-related audits. 
    
    
  • The results/recommendations of an SDG-related audit such as SDG preparedness and/or SDG implementation audit at any level (i.e., national, sub-national) as well as other works of SAIs with SDG perspective such as surveys, research papers, investigations etc. are highly relevant for advancement/implementation of the Agenda 2030 and the SDGs in a country.  

• Thus, to formalise the partnership between the SAIs and UN Agencies based on the cooperation of the TCA and the UN in Turkey which in turn is expected to serve to the benefit of all interested SAIs, the present Project Group is launched to provide a draft framework of cooperation for further elaboration/discussion with the UN in the context of SAIs’ SDG-related audit processes and to develop a “Discussion and Recommendations Paper” as a final output. 

Objective 

The proposed engagement with the UN in Turkey is built upon mutual exchange of expertise, experience, and 
knowledge in the lines of (i) implementation of the SDGs and (ii) any kind of SAIs’ work carried out with an SDG 
perspective in the context of SDG preparedness/implementation. More specifically, the proposed cooperation 
aims at contributing to the: 

1. Contextual analysis (relevance, risks, legislative frameworks, institutional settings etc.) in defining the audit themes and audit scope in order to make best use of scarce audit resources. 
2. Planning of SDG preparedness and implementation audits as well as other SDG-related works of SAIs.
3. Development of the most relevant SDG audit question sets. 
4. Execution of different stages of SDG preparedness and implementation of audits or SDG-related work as a means of external stakeholder engagement.
5. Integration of SDG-related audit recommendations into UN’s strategic/operational frameworks. 

In a nutshell, defining the main lines of cooperation areas between the UN and SAIs in the SDG-related audit 
processes and presenting them through discussion and recommendation papers addressing the main intended 
users, i.e., SAIs, is the core objective of this study.