I am delighted to introduce the Operational Plan for 2024, the inaugural year of the new Strategic Plan for the INTOSAI Development Initiative (IDI). As we embark on this journey to operationalise our vision for 2024-2029, I extend my heartfelt gratitude to our dedicated staff, partners, and the broader Supreme Audit Institution (SAI) community for their unwavering support throughout the implementation of the past strategic plan as well as the process for developing the new one. 

Now that we are stepping into this new era, it is essential to reflect on the journey that led us here. Our new Strategic Plan builds upon the successes and lessons of the past while aligning with the evolving needs of SAIs in developing countries. It demonstrates our commitment to enhancing transparency, accountability, and governance across the globe. 

In addition to these, we are elevating the focus on two critical dimensions: Bilateral Support and Global Foundations, both of which have demonstrated their value in providing tailored assistance and fostering partnerships globally. They will now also be known as work streams, reinforcing our dedication to comprehensive capacity development. Our focus on gender and inclusion continues into the new period. 

Our new Strategic Plan seeks to provide SAIs with more stable and predictable support, enhancing our impact. To achieve this, we have identified three strategic priorities that will guide our activities: ‘Sustainability’, ‘Digitalisation’, and ‘Public Trust in SAIs’. 

The Operational Plan for 2024, which includes this Operational Plan Highlights and detailed Work Stream Operational Plans, is structured around these strategic priorities. It outlines our roadmap for the year, the activities planned, and the expected outcomes in terms of the IDI Results System that will support the new Strategic Plan. 

The committed involvement and drive of all our stakeholders and staff is the bedrock upon which our success is built. As we move forward, I eagerly anticipate your continued collaboration and support. Together, we will stay true to our values of being professional, innovative, collaborative and acting with heart, and empower independent, credible, and sustainable SAIs for better societies and improved lives.

The first initiative is our joint research project with OECD which was launched during the Masterclass on SAI Independence in 2023. The research project aims to complement the Mexico Declaration and will result in the IDI-OECD guidelines on SAI Independence addressed to Ministries of Finance and Parliaments. 

In 2024, the scoping of the project will be finalised, and the initial research will begin.

The second will build on the results of Mastery with OECD and the 1^st IDI – Arab Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (ARABOSAI) Symposium, and will aim to facilitate regional interaction between SAI leaderships and influential regional/continental stakeholders. 

These interactions will be organised on the margins of regional events and will be open to all SAIs within the specific target group. They will also be geared towards tangible outcomes, such as a Declaration and/or joint action plans.

In 2024, we will host a follow-up event with ARABOSAI, as well as events with Organisation of Latin American and Caribbean Supreme Audit Institutions (OLACEFS), African Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (AFROSAI) and the EU contact Committee of SAIs.

The third will target SAIs’ legal functions with the ambition to strengthen their role as the first line of defence in safeguarding and protecting SAI Independence in case of threats, consolidating their role in spearheading legislative changes. It will include three pillars, one focusing on the legal unit itself, the second will target the practitioners, while the third will focus on the development of tools, guidance, and generation of knowledge. 

The initiative, which forms part of IDI’s proactive approach to SAI Independence will be developed in partnership with African Organisation of English-Speaking SAIs (AFROSAI-E), the Italian Court of Auditors, as well as experts within and outside of the SAI community. 

Finally, we will stimulate country level interaction between SAIs and their accountability ecosystem i.e., Parliament, Civil Society Organisations, Integrity Institutions, and support the roll-out of the country level workshops between SAIs and accountability actors which where piloted in the Solomon Islands in 2022 and Malawi in 2023. 

This initiative will be offered on-demand and tailored to different topics to demonstrate the value of SAIs.

Revision of the SAI PMF Framework

With over 100 assessments done since its endorsement in 2016, the SAI PMF continues to grow as an internationally accepted framework for measuring the performance of SAIs. Notwithstanding the positive outlook in the uptake of SAI PMF globally, a periodic review and update of the framework to align with global trends and new developments in external public sector auditing is inevitable. Additionally, the review of the framework provides an opportunity to ensure that SAI PMF remains relevant and fit-for-purpose for all SAIs, regardless of size and model. 

Considering that there has not been a comprehensive revision of the complete SAI PMF framework since its inception seven years ago, 2024 is an opportune time to take stock and conduct a broad consultation by inviting suggestions from the INTOSAI community and other stakeholders on possible additional enhancements to the current version of the framework. Consultations have already commenced in 2023 and the analysis of submissions will be a key activity in 2024. As the strategic lead on SAI PMF, the CBC will make the final decision on the revisions to be adopted.

Provision of SAI-level support on governance and independence

The objective of SAI-level support is to accelerate performance improvements in governance and independence for SAIs through targeted activities, mainly delivered in-country but limited in scope to 12 months. Offered jointly by the Well Governed SAIs and Independent SAIs work streams in IDI, and funded by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), such support seeks to help selected SAIs in addressing both internal and external constraints of SAI performance. A better governed SAI that demonstrates value and impact can appear more independent in the eyes of external stakeholders and can be more empowered to confidently engage with them, even if it still lacks de jure independence.

We have restructured the work stream around four value deliverables – Competent SAI auditors, Effective SAI Audit Leaders, Sustainable Audit Practices, and Raised SAI Audit Profile. 

We would like to highlight three new developments planned to start in 2024. 

1. The Centre for SAI Audit Professionals (The Centre) will start its functions in 2024. It will offer services to SAIs across the world in a blended format. Besides building an extensive and accessible online platform, the Centre will also organise in-person interactions for SAI auditors. It will offer five streams of support. 

2. We also plan to start piloting ‘Shared Services Arrangements’ for supporting SAIs in implementing systems of audit quality management. Many of the SAIs in the INTOSAI community face challenges in having in place a critical mass of qualified quality management persons. Building a pool of such resources at the INTOSAI and regional level can facilitate support to SAIs in calling on such resources to support their quality management implementation. We plan to work together with partners to develop a certificate for quality management specialists and foster a network that can provide shared services across the INTOSAI community. 

3. In 2024 we will also start providing holistic and in-depth support to SAIs for enhancing Sustainable Audit Practices. The nature and scope of such support will be determined based on comprehensive needs assessment conducted by the SAI team with support from IDI. Based on this we could offer support in areas such as strategic and annual audit planning, development and maintenance of audit methodology, growing competent SAI auditors, building robust follow up systems, setting up systems of audit quality management and most importantly raising SAI audit profile. We plan to offer such support in financial, performance and compliance audits. This area of work will be scaled up based on demand and availability of resources. 

We have restructured the work stream around four value deliverables - Competent SAI auditors, Effective SAI Audit Leaders, Sustainable Audit Practices, and Raised SAI Audit Profile. The new developments under this work stream involve designing long-term, predictable support for trends which we will work with throughout our strategic plan period. These are auditing technology, SDGs, and climate action. 

Longer term predictable support for technology auditors – We recognise the transformation that technology can bring in the SAI audit world and the need for SAI auditors to be equipped to provide relevant audit response to the digital transformation in the public sector. As such we plan to restructure LOTA Pioneers into two streams of regular support for technology auditors. While one stream will offer professional education and audit support for conducting technology audits, the other stream will build competencies of auditors in using data analytics in audit. We visualise technology audit professionals who are able to audit government digital transformation processes, build trust in government technology systems, establish a better regulatory framework for technology, and promote transparency, accountability, inclusion, and compliance in technology use. We plan to develop detailed competency frameworks, curriculum, professional education and on the job support in the two streams. 

A pool of SDG Auditors – We have been supporting SAIs in auditing SDGs since 2016. Such support has mainly included guidance and facilitation of cooperative audits on preparedness and implementation. To make our support more sustainable, we plan to work together with key partners to identify competencies required by SDG auditors and build professional and practical education for developing those competencies. We believe that developing such a pool and offering such support on a regular basis will lead to high quality and high impact SDG audits on areas of national significance. Developing strategic audit plans for SDG audits will also be a part of the curriculum. We plan to support SDG auditors in mainstreaming audit perspectives on policy coherence, multi stakeholder engagement and leave no one behind, both in their strategic audit plans as well as SDG audits conducted.

Explore long-term support for auditing climate action – 

We are currently supporting 45 SAIs in English and Spanish in auditing climate change adaptation actions. In 2024 we will continue this support and start support for Arabic-speaking SAIs. Given the tremendous significance of the topic of climate change and recognising the need to explore other areas including sustainability information on environment, climate finance and energy, we will discuss longer-term cooperation with WGEA and other partners like Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) and IFAC as International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) for supporting SAIs in auditing these areas.

We will finalise the revised bilateral policy. This will revisit the roles IDI plays in challenging contexts, and types of deliverables that we offer. Country projects linked to the GSAI programme will all be in the implementation phase, and new support will be provided to development of a range of capacities in the eight SAIs (Benin, Belize, Dominica, Haiti, Honduras, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon and Tajikistan). We will also provide supplementary support to jurisdictional control to SAI Guinea.

Working with stakeholders will be one of our priorities. We will conduct joint webinars with the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) on SAI-Parliament collaboration, as well as working on institutional arrangement products with IPU. Along with the INTOSAI Journal, we will host four joint webinars on stakeholder engagement and communications, while expanding our focus on strategic communications and outreach through external media and stakeholder engagement, a new IDI website and even more intensive use of digital channels. We will also conduct an advocacy campaign related to the role of SAIs vis-à-vis Climate Change.

In terms of brokerage, we will roll out BUSS in the ARABOSAI region and seek funding for the GSAI countries during their first phase of support implementation. Webinars on advantages, lessons learnt, and bottlenecks of peer-to-peer arrangements will be offered to all INTOSAI members, in collaboration with CBC P2P workstream. Significantly, 2024 will also be important for us for dissemination of the 2023 Global SAI Stocktaking Report, which will be completed in late 2023. 

We will steadily continue our gender and inclusion journey - as an organisation, with the SAIs and with our partners. This includes applying an intersectionality lens and working towards better integrating different aspects of diversity in the planning, implementation, monitoring and reporting of our initiatives. Here are some of the highlights for 2024:

Embedding gender and inclusion in audits

IDI is streamlining gender equality and inclusion across its audit initiatives. Through embedded educational modules and initiative requirements, we prompt SAI participants to rethink audit scopes and gain a new point of view on how diverse topics might impact different social groups. For instance, in our work on technology audits in LOTA Pioneers, IDI stresses that technologies that are meant to make the lives of citizens better can also create a digital divide and lead to digital exclusion or even digital poverty. As an example, computers can make our decisions faster, but not necessarily fairer. When performing audits, it is important to take this into consideration and strive for ‘techquity’ - the intersectionality between the use of technology and ensuring equitable environments. Race, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and disability all impact on how citizens reach and use public services. Strategically-implemented technology has the power to address and mitigate the barriers citizens face.

The same is relevant for IDI-supported global audits of climate change adaptation actions (CCAA) where inclusion is one of the three cross-cutting themes. In the four main themes of the CCAA audit, i.e., disaster risk reduction, water resources management, sea level rise and coastal erosion, and implementation of adaptation planning or plans, we cover inclusion aspects in education and through audit questions banks made available to SAI auditors. 

Gender and inclusion as part of human resources and leadership

As part of SAI internal governance processes and routines, human resource management (HRM) provides avenues to lead by example on gender and inclusion and to directly impact SAI staff. 

From 2024, the TOGETHER Initiative will provide support to SAIs to enhance their internal capacity to be gender and inclusion responsive in different dimensions of their HRM processes and systems such as recruitment, staff well-being, professional development, HR strategy and policy, etc. SAIs themselves will identify their issues and priorities by reviewing their own practices. TOGETHER has a dedicated component on Gender, Diversity and Inclusion. This component is expected to expand over the next period, with the adaptation of existing resources to SAIs’ needs, and the development of a dedicated network of SAI Gender, Diversity and Inclusion champions. They will contribute as resource persons and support their own SAIs.

Gender and Inclusion is often about people and organisational culture. Through the Mastery Initiative, IDI offers dedicated spaces for the exchange of perspectives and experiences between SAI leaders. This is crucial, as they are responsible for setting the tone at the top on organisational culture, including gender and inclusion. The leadership masterclass on inclusive leadership, which started in 2023, will also be offered in 2024.

For more information on gender, intersectionality and inclusion in IDI’s support to SAIs and as an organisation, see the more detailed plans for the different work streams and for corporate affairs. 

• Independent SAIs Work Stream
• Well-Governed SAIs Work Stream
• Professional SAIs Work Stream
• Relevant SAIs Work Stream
• Bilateral Support
• Global Foundations
• IDI Corporate and Cross-Cutting Issues

• The International SAI Community shares a common vision and set of strategic goals and organizational priorities as set down in the INTOSAI Strategic Plan 2023-2028. IDI partners with INTOSAI bodies to support delivery of the INTOSAI plan, as well as the IDI Strategic Plan. his includes the INTOSAI Governing Board, General Secretariat, Policy, Finance and Administration Committee, Capacity Building Committee, Knowledge Sharing Committee and its constituent working groups like WGEA, Working Group on IT Audit (WGITA) and Working Group on Impact of Science and Technology on Audit (WGISTA) and Professional Standards Committee (including its Financial Audit and Accounting, Performance Audit and Compliance Audit sub-committees). 
  
  
• IDI also works in close cooperation with all the regional SAI organisations: AFROSAI, ARABOSAI, ASOSAI, CAROSAI, EUROSAI, OLACEFS and PASAI, and the subregions AFROSAI-E, CREFIAF and ASEANSAI. The regions provide a crucial link between IDI’s global perspective, and the specific strengths, challenges and needs of their member SAIs. The regional and sub-regional bodies are key partners for the delivery of all IDI initiatives.

• IDI’s Global Foundations work stream continues to support and help coordinate the work of the INTOSAI-Donor Cooperation.
  
  
• IDI and the IMF are working together, and supporting each other’s initiatives, on strengthening the audit of the use of COVID-19 emergency funding. 
  
  
• IDI is partnering with IPU to facilitate stronger collaboration between SAIs and their parliaments.
  
  
• IDI has MOUs with the SAIs of Indonesia and Brazil to work together in different areas.
  
  
• IDI has signed an MOU with UN Women to promote and support gender equality and inclusion. 
  
  
• IDI has a strategic partnership with the Financial Audit and Accounting Subcommittee (FAAS) of INTOSAI Professional Standards Committee.