Audit Lending and Borrowing Frameworks

Twitter

Background

In the last decade, several national governments (referred to as sovereigns) have faced debt crises. The frequency and severity of debt crises and the consequent adverse impact on managing of public finances reinforces the need for promoting responsible lending and borrowing behaviours. An important role in this is played by the national oversight institutions like the Parliaments and SAIs. The INTOSAI Working Group on Public Debt (WGPD) has developed ISSAIs and case studies to focus on public debt audit issues. The ISSAIs provide overarching guidance to the SAIs engaged in public debt audit.  Lack of globally agreed rules and regulations guiding sovereign financing have contributed to irresponsible sovereign borrowing and lending. UNCTAD has developed a set of voluntary principles on responsible sovereign lending and borrowing. The principles are meant to fill this gap.

In 2013, the IDI launched a comprehensive global programme on public debt with a focus on supporting SAIs in strengthening their audit capabilities in assessing the legal and administrative frameworks in the borrowing as well as lending sovereign functions. The global programme, covering 2013-2017, is run simultaneously in English and Spanish and will involve selected developing country SAIs.

Until the previous version of this programme plan, the IDI had planned for a pool of certified PDA experts as one of the deliverables from the programme. However, in light of the resources required to create such a pool, the current requirements for certification for competency and level of professional staff capacity currently available in participating SAIs, it was decided to remove this component and instead to focus attention on the development of organisational capacity of the SAI to conduct quality audits in this area on a regular basis. Accordingly, a QA mechanism and lessons learned / exit meeting was included as programme components. In 2016 14 SAIs participated in the QA, which was conducted by experts from the INTOSAI WGPD. The IDI also engaged with WGPD to develop a community for Public Debt Audit, managed by experts from WGPD, instead of a programme linked community. This community will be available on the KSC-IDI community portal.

  pdf The ALBF Compendium (1.49 MB)

Programme Profile