Tag: USA

On July 11, 16 international professionals from Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) graduated from the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) International Auditor Fellowship Program (IAFP). The 2024 fellows represent the countries of Albania, Argentina, Brazil, Georgia, India, Kosovo, Madagascar, Malawi, Nepal, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Uganda, and Ukraine.

The Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) work routinely generates recommendations for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of government programs, resulting in measurable savings and improvements. Since fiscal year (FY) 2002, GAO’s work has resulted in about $1.38 trillion in financial benefits and over 28,000 program and operational benefits that have helped change laws, improve public safety and other services, and promote better management throughout government. In FY 2023 alone, GAO’s work yielded $70.4 billion in financial benefits—a return of about $84 for every dollar invested in GAO. GAO also identified 1,220 other benefits—those that cannot be measured in dollars but led to program and operational improvements across the government.  Examples of recent accomplishments include:

Audits performed by Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) are valuable tools that help identify risks, inefficiencies and areas of improvement for a wide variety of governmental programs.  These audits fill the gap between policy and practice by providing timely audit results and constructive feedback to those audited.  Included in this constructive feedback are recommendations meant to enhance performance and implementation of recommendations to ensure policy and/or standards are being met. This closing of the audit loop is an essential, final step in the audit process.  

Many auditors have developed considerable experience conducting each stage of an audit, yet those same auditors often lose momentum when it comes to moving from one stage to the next. One reason is that auditors must get the details right to support convincing findings and conclusions; however, that same focus on the details may prevent an auditor from considering how decisions on one stage will impact the next stage of the audit. Consequently, in addition to developing technical skills needed to execute each stage of an audit, auditors should also develop the ability to think ahead to help an audit move smoothly from one stage to the next. 

I hope this message finds you, your colleagues, and families in good health and high spirits. I would like to thank you for your continued support, contributions, and interest in the INTOSAI Journal. As Journal President, I am most grateful for your ongoing efforts to help us deliver timely, informative, and helpful content for the INTOSAI community and our key stakeholders.

After 40 years of conducting its International Auditor Fellowship Program (fellows program) in-person, the U.S….

The Government Accountability Office—the United States Supreme Audit Institution—established its Innovation Lab in 2019 as a research entity dedicated to exploration and experimentation of data science techniques and emerging technologies. The goal is to amplify GAO’s oversight capabilities across the evolving web 3.0 landscape. The INTOSAI Journal recently joined the Lab for a tour of the facility at GAO headquarters where an entrepreneurial team of data scientists, technologists, and analysts come together collaboratively across a portfolio of novel projects ranging from deployment of large language models to use of extended reality.

The International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI) presented the Jörg Kandutsch Award at the…

In recent years, Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) have increasingly seen the value in engaging with civil society as a way to enhance government accountability and the quality of their audits. While we regularly engage with civil society during the normal course of our work, at no time has this been more important than during global emergencies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic that we all have experienced for going on three years.

Greetings and Happy New Year to the INTOSAI community from the International Journal of Government Auditing. The Journal Board of Directors and staff look forward to continuing our constructive, collegial, and informative engagement with the INTOSAI community in 2022 and beyond. I am very excited to announce that…

In a major show of support, INTOSAI provided funding to Supreme Audit Institutions (SAI) to help with continuity of operations during the pandemic. Under the leadership of Dr. Hussam Alangari, Auditor General of Saudi Arabia, and Mr. Gene Dodaro, Comptroller General of the United States, the “SAI Continuity during COVID-19” grant funded the purchase of…

With governments around the world spending massive sums to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) have a key role to play in detecting and preventing fraud. To share knowledge and best practices, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) held an international webinar on September 15, 2021, on “Auditing for Fraud: Experiences, Tools and Techniques, and Looking Ahead.” The virtual event, which attracted approximately 260 attendees, was…

Natural disasters, such as hurricanes, flooding, and wildfires, have the potential to devastate people’s everyday lives by causing injuries and death, destroying homes and infrastructure, and wreaking economic havoc. From 2000 through 2019, there were 7,348 major disaster events worldwide, which claimed 1.23 million lives, affected 4.2 billion people (many more than once), and resulted in approximately U.S. $2.97 trillion in global economic losses. Governments usually lead recovery efforts by…

Among the many drastic changes wrought by the COVID-19 crisis has been the sudden shift to a virtual work environment. At the start of the pandemic, some audit offices had already made significant strides toward enabling remote work, while others conducted work primarily in-person, whether to build a collaborative work culture, ensure safe handling of sensitive documents, or due to limited information technology infrastructure or other reasons. The pandemic has presented..

The rapidly evolving pace of AI makes it necessary to establish a framework to independently verify AI systems (even as the technology continues to advance). The global accountability community needs a toolkit to evaluate this ever-changing technology, and, more importantly, organizations that build, purchase, and deploy AI need a framework to understand how AI systems will be evaluated. The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), recognizing the urgent need for AI governance…

On May 25, 2021, Mr. Gene Dodaro, Comptroller General of the United States, led a virtual discussion group on lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 30 organizations—including INTOSAI organizations and 21 Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs), donor and civil society organizations, and United Nations organizations and observers—contributed to the dialogue. The group stems from…

Making informed planning decisions early in the audit process is key to completing audits in a timely manner. Many teams use historical information to determine how long an audit will take. But every audit and every audit organization is different, so it is impossible to…