Q2 2025

Assessing infrastructure resilience is key to mitigating risks, enhancing service delivery, and ensuring long-term value for citizens. Rigorous audits allow us to identify areas for improvement, strengthen governance, promote accountability, and optimize resource utilization. Given the pressures of urbanization, climate change, and technological progress, infrastructure planning and management must be forward-thinking, inclusive, and adaptive to evolving challenges.

Waste, often regarded as the byproduct of industrialization and urbanization, has become one of the most critical global issues, with municipal waste generated worldwide exceeding two billion tons each year. This number will continue to rise due to increased human activity throughout the entire lifecycle of non-municipal waste as well, including that from agriculture, construction, industry, and healthcare. 

In China, water security is considered a critical aspect of infrastructure, focusing on optimizing the water resource distribution system and improving the flood control and disaster mitigation system. In 2022, to accelerate the construction of a national water network and build a modern, high-quality water infrastructure network, and to comprehensively address issues of water resources, water ecology, water environment, and water disasters, the Chinese government issued the “National Water Network Construction Planning Outline” (hereinafter referred to as the “Water Network Plan”). In 2023, the National Audit Office of China carried out a special audit on construction and operation of major water diversion projects, aiming to assist in building a safe and resilient modern water network. The audit focused on revealing prominent problems in the construction and operation of major water diversion projects and finding out the systemic barriers, mechanistic defects, and institutional loopholes behind these issues. This article, based on relevant planning and constructions of the national water network, studies key areas that audits should focus on, and discusses experiences, practices of audit, and shares typical cases for reference.

Infrastructure is a fundamental pillar of resilience and innovation, particularly in sectors that impact sustainability and environmental management. Supreme audit institutions (SAIs) play a crucial role in evaluating whether public infrastructure investments align with national and international commitments, including climate goals and circular economy objectives. An audit conducted by the State Audit Office of Latvia (SAI Latvia) on biodegradable waste sorting provides valuable insights into the challenges of infrastructure planning, execution, and governance.

The audit of crisis management functioning within rail infrastructure was undertaken on the Supreme Audit Office of Poland, Najwyższa Izba Kontroli (NIK)’s own initiative and covered among other, procedures applied during the biggest breakdown of rail traffic control that occurred in March 2022, 3 weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine. The audit was also driven by a significant number of issues and accidents on railways. In 2020, 516 railway accidents occurred, of which 6 were serious accidents caused by collisions or derailment of trains and affected the safety of people within railway areas. Moreover, 1,218 incidents were noted that did not result in any fatalities or serious injuries or in material or environment damage. However, these incidents could have turned into events requiring actions provided for in crisis management plans. The also audit investigated issues identified during the mass coal transports from seaports at the turn of 2022-2023, issues related to movements of refugees from Ukraine, difficulties in rail traffic in the area of ​​Warsaw Junction caused by investment works in 2020-2023 and disturbances in rail traffic caused by an unauthorized broadcasting of radio-stop signals in 2020-2023.

Some Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) have been implementing the Concurrent Control, a process created by the SAI of Peru, as it is a valuable tool for control of large projects. However, it is appropriate to raise innovative proposals aimed at improving the process of concurrent control in order to improve adverse situations identified by government auditors. Based on the lessons learned to date, it is important to improve the levels of effectiveness and efficiency in their interventions, with the goal of replicating their effect on the control by other SAIs that have decided to implement similar controls.

Infrastructure is a fundamental part of economic growth, contributing to approximately 14% of the global gross domestic product (GDP). The lack of robust infrastructure can have wide-ranging consequences, affecting societal risks such as societal polarization, health and well-being, inequality and lack of economic opportunity or unemployment. The Word Economic Forum (WEF) stated that insufficient public infrastructure ranks among the top 20 global risks. Given its significance, leveraging infrastructure is essential for fostering economic development. 

According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Global Centre for Public Service Excellence, foresight explores possible and probable futures, generating insights that enable transformative actions in the present, which are compatible with the unfolding future. 

The Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions of Portuguese-speaking Countries (OISC-CPLP), with the support of the European Union-Funded United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Multicountry Public Financial Management (Pro PALOP-TL), in collaboration with the Good Financial Governance Programme in Mozambique of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH, (GIZ), successfully launched the Coordinated Performance Audit on Gender-Based Violence (CAGBV) on December 2, 2024. Hosted by the Tribunal de Contas de Cabo Verde, the international seminar marked a significant milestone in the collective efforts of Portuguese-speaking Countries: Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Timor-Leste (PALOP-TL) Supreme Audit Institutions to address the pervasive issue of gender-based violence.

Gender equality is at the heart of a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable future for everyone, everywhere. Over many decades, progress on women’s and girls’ rights has laid the foundation to gender equality and inclusion in many parts of the world. For example, today, more than 100 countries track budget allocations for gender equality. 

As SAIs navigate today’s rapidly evolving technological and regulatory advancements, the morality, resilience, and productivity of their auditors can experience significant fluctuations. These variations, if remained uncaptured, pose a threat to the core mission of SAIs, which is to ensure transparency, accountability, and the effective use of public resources.

The Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) play an essential role in assessing the effectiveness of government policies. In an era marked by rapid technological shifts, policies governing cybersecurity and data protection are under immense pressure to meet high standards of resilience and compliance. This article aims to broaden our understanding by examining new insights that can complement the existing guidelines provided by the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI), mainly described in the: