Programme Implementation Strategy

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In the bilateral programme there is a portfolio of agreements with selected country SAIs. This portfolio and phases of projects with each SAI will vary over time. pdf The IDI bilateral policy (1.15 MB)  forms the general implementation strategy for the bilateral programme, including how support should be planned and implemented with individual SAIs. The policy clarifies the conditions for getting bilateral support of IDI and lists three main roles IDI can consider when supporting SAIs bilaterally:

1. Broker role – short term: IDI supports SAIs in managing their capacity development, and prepares the way for additional support. This is most relevant for SAIs which lacks clear strategic priorities and need to establish these before substantial capacity development support can be delivered.
2. Capacity maintenance and lifeline support – short and medium term: For SAIs in countries that are particularly unstable and unpromising, any support must have limited ambitions, such as maintaining the basic competency and skills of the SAI and its staff. In such circumstances the role of IDI would be to play an intermediate role and then ensure more long-term support is provided when the situation stabilizes.
3. Specialized capacity provider – short and medium term: Here the IDI would support the implementation of specific strategic priorities of the SAI where IDI has particular competence and comparative advantages.

The IDI bilateral policy also lists six principles that should guide IDI in providing the support:

• Partner-driven process towards ISSAI compliance
• Holistic and change oriented approach using the SAI Strategic Management Framework
• Peer-to-peer support by experienced resource persons
• Presence and continuity
• Partnerships and active coordination with INTOSAI regions and development partners
• Flexibility and continuous learning
• Management of risks

Based on these potential roles and key principles, each bilateral project has specific outcomes, outputs and activities depending on the needs and opportunities in the specific country

Results

Auditors of SAI South Sudan, SAI Kenya and SAI Norway work together to plan three key audits, Nairobi June 2017

The bilateral programme has had some major achievements in 2017, both in terms of completion of planned outputs, establishing new partnerships and securing funding.

In spite of a very challenging context and limited staff capacity, SAI Afghanistan has completed the SAI PMF report including an external review. SAI Somalia has completed their needs assessment and strategic plan, and shared this widely both internally and externally. Together with AFROSAI-E and SAI Kenya as a major provider of resource persons, a three year cooperation has been established with SAI South Sudan. Project activities are implemented mostly according to plan, which is an achievement given the context and compare to how similar institutional support in South Sudan are struggling. An innovative achievement in 2017 has also been the initiated partnership with CREFIAF and AFROSAI-E to jointly establish a programme for support to the Tier 2 SAIs.

The IDI outcomes planned for 2017 have been achieved, which mainly is the completion of the SAI PMF report in Afghanistan and the Strategic plan in Somalia. When it comes to the SAI outcomes, this is generally too early to assess, but there are clear indications that these can be achieved. In Afghanistan the SAI is establishing a strategic planning process where the SAI PMF is being used. In Somalia, the SAI is taking clear steps to improve performance in line with the strategic plan.

In 2017, new Cooperation agreements were entered with the SAIs of South Sudan and Somalia. This means new outputs were added for 2017 as compare to the Operational plan for 2017. The table below gives an overview of the main outputs for the different projects of the bilateral programme in 2016 and 2017, both planned and those added during 2017 (marked with *).

Integration of Gender Issues and Empowerment of Women and Girls

Gender and equal rights have been addressed in the following ways:

• Indicators for female participation in project activities are included in the Cooperation agreements, and used for discussions with the SAIs on female participants in activities. The percentage of female staff in the cooperating SAIs are relatively low, and it is therefore challenging to ensure a high female participation rate in project activities.
• Gender balance is sought when mobilizing advisors. About 1/3 of resource persons were female in 2017.
• The SAIs are encouraged to take gender into account when selecting audit questions for the performance audits. This has so far only been relevant for the Performance audit of the Juba city council by the NAC, where gender has not been selected as an area for the audit.

Key lessons learnt bilateral programme 2016-2017

1. SAIs in very challenging situations with a dedicated top management can produce tangible outputs
2. Smooth communication and coordination can be established in spite of distance based support. Lack of presence on a daily basis must and can be compensated by frequent phone/online calls, as well as prioritizing relationship building activities in meetings and workshops
3. The quality of resource persons and ability to provide relevant and continuous advice are key success factors, but enabling regular contact between advisors and team leaders in partner-SAIs is a challenge.
4. Support to organize events can help a lot and enable SAIs in challenging environments such as in Mogadishu and Juba to arrange important events by their own.
5. Global tools introduced must be considered critically and trainings must be contextualized.