Secretariat calls for nominations to the INTOSAI WGEA Awards

Secretariat calls for nominations to the INTOSAI WGEA Awards – Inspiration in Environmental Auditing

26.10.2023

In conjunction with the upcoming 22^nd INTOSAI WGEA Assembly, the Secretariat in collaboration with SAI Maldives proudly announces a call for nominations for the 3^rd INTOSAI WGEA Award - Inspiration in Environmental Auditing. The topic of this year’s Award is Impactful Environmental Audit. The call is open for nominations until 30 November. The winners will be rewarded at the Award ceremony to take place during the Assembly in January 2024 in Rovaniemi, Finland.

Background

The INTOSAI WGEA Award has been designed to promote a topical idea or innovation related to environmental auditing and further to increase the visibility of environmental auditing globally. The Award is presented biennially, at the INTOSAI WGEA Assembly meeting. The first Award handed over at the 20th Assembly, focused on visualisations. And the second one at the 21st Assembly rewarded WGEA participants’ own stories on what the WGEA has meant to them under the slogan “Your WGEA Story”.

3^rd Award topic: Impactful Environmental Audit

This year, the topic of the Award is Impactful Environmental Audit includes three categories which all contribute towards impactful auditing:

I. Presenting audit results inspiringly

Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs), as external auditors, hold their governments accountable for public spending. An essential part of this task is to make their audit reports available to parliament, stakeholders, and the general public. Traditionally, the main product for representing audit results is a written audit report. However, long reports including many details may be challenging for the readers to digest at first, hence complementary and more visual products are needed to draw the attention of larger audiences. This, most likely, will also lead to more impactful auditing, when the audit results are seen by more and more stakeholders. In this category, the Jury looks for nominations on inspiring ways to present audit results.

II. Using innovative methodology in auditing

Collecting and analyzing environmental data is a critical step in conducting audits. While more and more information is available, new methodologies to analyse this data are needed to ensure efficient and credible auditing. When a new methodology is successfully implemented, it will have a maximum impact while using less time and resources. In this category, the Jury expects nominations on environmental audit cases using innovative methodologies.

III. What makes an audit impactful?

How do you define the impact? Have you seen a change triggered by the audit recommendations? Usually, the impact of the audits is found through the follow-up audits, or it may even be that the impact achieved by auditing is not recognized. This may lead to a decrease in appreciation towards auditing. However, impact can happen at many levels and through several cycles. In this category, the Jury seeks to find innovative ways how to define impact and receive examples of impactful audit cases.

Submission of nominations

Please send your nominations by 30 November to the INTOSAI WGEA Secretariat intosaiwgea@vtv.fi (max. 1 submission per SAI in each category, in total max. 3 submissions). Before submission, kindly read the nomination instructions for each category in the full call. When submitting the nomination, kindly indicate which category it belongs to.

Upon successfully receiving the submission, a confirmation email will follow. Final decision on the winners will be made by the Award Selection Jury. Sylva Müllerová from SAI Czech Republic will kindly chair the jury. Other jury members are from SAI Egypt and Philippines.