About INTOSAI

INTOSAI (the International Organisation of Supreme Audit Institution) is an autonomous, independent and non-political organisation. It is a non-governmental organisation with special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations.

 INTOSAI is an umbrella organisation for the external government audit community. For more than 65 years it has provided an institutionalised framework for supreme audit institutions (SAIs) to promote development and transfer of knowledge, improve government auditing worldwide and enhance professional capacities, standing and influence of member SAIs in their respective countries. In keeping with INTOSAI's motto, 'Experientia mutua omnibus prodest', the exchange of experience among INTOSAI members and the findings and insights which result, are a guarantee that government auditing continuously progresses with new developments.

INTOSAI was founded in 1953 at the initiative of Emilio Fernandez Camus, then President of the SAI of Cuba. At that time, 34 SAIs met for the 1st INTOSAI Congress in Cuba. As of January 2019, INTOSAI has 193 Full Members, 5 Associated Members and one affiliate member.

INTOSAI Member States

 

SAIs of Supranational Organisations

 

Associate Members

 

Affiliate members

INTOSAI achieves its mission through a variety of bodies, programmes and activities. 

The principal bodies are the

  • Congress;
  • Governing Board;
  • General Secretariat and
  • Regional organisations.

The Finance and Administration Committee prepares decisions to be approved by the Governing Board.

 

Congresses (INCOSAI)

The Congress is the supreme organ of INTOSAI and is composed of all Members held once every three years. It offers all INTOSAI members an opportunity to share experiences, discuss issues, and pass resolutions and recommendations to improve government accountability worldwide.

Participants include delegations of member SAIs as well as representatives of the United Nations, the World Bank and other international and professional organizations.

INCOSAI list with themes PDF (357 kB)

 

Governing Board

The Governing Board of INTOSAI is composed of 22. As a rule, it meets annually between Congresses. To ensure balanced representation of all member countries, each of INTOSAI's seven Regional Organizations and the main types of public auditing systems are represented on the Board. The Chair of the Board is the head of the SAI that hosted the last congress.

The INTOSAI Development Initiative (IDI www.idi.no) and the International Journal of Government Auditing (IJGA www.intosaijournal.org) are also represented on the INTOSAI Governing Board.
 

General Secretariat

Since 1968 (by resolution of the 6th INTOSAI Congress in Tokyo) the General Secretariat of INTOSAI is located in Vienna, Austria, at the Court of Audit of the Republic of Austria. It provides central administrative support to INTOSAI, manages the INTOSAI budget, assists the Board and Congresses, facilitates communication among members, and organizes seminars and special studies.

The President of the Court of Audit of the Republic of Austria is the Secretary General of INTOSAI.

Statues INTOSAI 2019 PDF (393 kB)

INTOSAI Organigram INTOSAI PDF (172 kB)

 

INTOSAI – UN IN POST-2015 ISSUES

(Abstract from the INTOSAI Secretary General Josef Moser presentation
at the 67th INTOSAI Governing Board meeting in Abu Dhabi in November 2015.)


Anchoring the Basic Prerequisites for SAIs in the UN Post-2015 Development Goals

Efforts Towards a Further UN General Assembly Resolution for SAIs

On the occasion of the meeting between INTOSAI Secretary General Mr Josef Moser and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in early October 2013, INTOSAI was – with special consideration of the UN Resolution A/66/209 – invited to actively engage in the activities of the United Nations with regard to the Post-2015 Development Agenda, the successor goals of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which are to be decided in end-2015 at the UN level. In this regard, the safeguarding of the sustainable development of public finances is in the central interest of both the United States and INTOSAI.

The INTOSAI Declaration of Beijing also welcomes the involvement in the Post-2015 Development Agenda and calls upon SAIs to intensify their cooperation with the United Nations.

In the course of the efforts to promote SAIs in the framework of the Post-2015 Development Agenda, the General Secretariat is now pursuing a new UN General Assembly resolution, in order to take a preliminary step on the way to the inclusion of the basic prerequisites for a sustainable development of public finances – independence and capacity building of SAIs and improvement of the public accounting systems.

This resolution shall once again point to the importance of the independent work of SAIs for public administration and to the role of SAI capacity building. It shall also call for the improvement of the public accounting systems. The aim is to anchor once again the importance of SAI independence and to highlight their contribution to achieving the national and international development goals and the goals set out in the Post-2015 Development Agenda. A further purpose of the resolution is to call for a deeper cooperation between the United Nations and the SAIs and INTOSAI.

In order to encourage the adoption of the UN resolution, the General Secretariat sent a letter to all members in September 2014. In this letter it illustrated the content of the envisaged resolution and asked the addressees to support this endeavour at their respective national bodies. As demonstrated by the INTOSAI initiative with regard to the adoption of the UN Resolution A/66/209, SAIs are able to implement a goal at the global level if they take concerted action.

In this spirit, the General Secretariat of INTOSAI seized the opportunity provided by numerous meetings in the past weeks, such as the 17th PASAI Congress in Samoa in 2014, the annual meeting of the Steering Committee of the INTOSAI Goal Committee 2 on capacity building in Lima and the Goal Committee 3 on knowledge sharing in Cairo, as well as the meeting of the INTOSAI-Donor Cooperation in Paris, the 11th meeting of the INTOSAI Finance and Administration Committee in Paris or the II ASOSAI-EUROSAI Joint Conference, to ask the participating delegates to actively support this central aim of INTOSAI.

In this context, the General Secretariat took a multitude of measures, which are illustrated in the following.
 

INTOSAI Communication

Involvement of INTOSAI in the Elaboration of the United Nations Post-2015 Development Agenda

In October 2013, INCOSAI XXI called for the implementation of the UN Resolution A/66/209 on SAI independence. At the same time it encouraged INTOSAI to engage in the elaboration process of the United Nations Post-2015 Development Agenda, thereby promoting the inclusion of SAIs. Furthermore, INTOSAI set itself the communication objective “Implementation of the Beijing Declaration, with particular regard to the UN General Assembly Resolution A/66/209 on strengthening SAI independence and the ISSAI framework on safeguarding the sustainable development of public finances”. With these outcome objectives, the General Secretariat placed a focus on the cooperation with the United Nations.

The Post-2015 Development Agenda will replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of the United Nations, which expire in 2015. This agenda shall set forth a comprehensive global programme for sustainable development. Currently, the United Nations are engaging in broad consultation and coordination activities in order to establish a new global regime for sustainable development by end-2015. Based, among others, on the UN Resolution A/66/209 on SAI independence, which calls for an intensified cooperation between the United Nations and its Members States with INTOSAI, INTOSAI is regarded as a reliable partner for the improvement of accountability, good governance, effectiveness and transparency.

The aim of INTOSAI is to strengthen SAIs at the national level and to ensure that SAIs in every members state can perform their work independently, unhindered and as successfully as possible. After holding consultations with the members of the Governing Board and informing all INTOSAI members, the General Secretariat is therefore engaging in strengthening the following elements in the framework of the Post-2015 Development Agenda:

-       SAI independence

In the spirit of the Lima and Mexico Declarations, whose core topics are represented in the UN Resolution A/66/209, independence is the most important prerequisite for effective SAI activities.

-       Capacity building for SAIs

In the spirit of good governance, it is essential to strengthen the capacities of SAIs. By implementing its strategic goals, INTOSAI is contributing to supporting its members in improving themselves. It is, however, also necessary to raise the awareness for the benefits of strengthening of SAIs among the international community.

-       Improvement of the public accounting systems

One of the essential prerequisites of public administration is a transparent, plausible public accounting system, which provides a true and fair view of the financial situation of the state. The improvement of the public accounting systems is key to the work of SAIs with regard to the sustainability of public finances.

In its efforts to implement these goals, the General Secretariat receives major support from the responsible UN bodies. It is especially the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), chaired by Mr Martin Sajdik, the Austrian representative to the United Nations in New York, and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA), chaired by Under-Secretary-General Mr Wu Hongbo, that form reliable contact points for the General Secretariat.

UN post 2015 agenda PDF (612 kB)
UN Resolution 2011 PDF (66 kB)
UN Resolution 2014 PDF (120 kB)
UN Resolution 2015 PDF (128 kB)

 

About INTOSAI  DEVELOPMENT  INITIATIVE (IDI)

The IDI is non-profit organisation. IDI was established by resolution of the INTOSAI Congress (INCOSAI) in 1986, and was hosted by the SAI of Canada from 1986 to 2000. At the XVI INCOSAI in 1998, the General Assembly approved to transfer the IDI Secretariat from Canada to Norway by 1 January 2001. The establishment of the IDI in Norway had been approved by the Norwegian Parliament by decision of 29 October 1998 based on the proposal by the Office of the Auditor General of Norway (OAGN). An important prerequisite for OAGN to take on the role of hosting the IDI was the favourable commitment of the Norwegian Government (the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) to provide an annual grant in the budget for international development cooperation as a long-term arrangement to provide a platform for financially stable operations of the IDI Secretariat.

Since its establishment, the IDI has been responsible for delivering a number of needs-based professional seminars and courses to SAIs of developing countries, mainly in the field of public auditing. Simultaneously, the IDI has trained a substantial number of training specialists and assisted the different regions of INTOSAI in establishing sustainable training infrastructures that could take responsibility for training within their region. 

IDI is organised as a foundation according to Norwegian laws. The organisation comprises the IDI Board, the IDI Secretariat and the IDI Advisory Committee.
 

IDI Programmes

The core target group of the IDI are the SAIs of developing countries. More than 2/3 of the INTOSAI members fall within this category. The IDI primarily works on a multilateral basis in cooperation with the capacity building infrastructure in each of the seven INTOSAI regions and their capacity building/institutional strengthening committees. The different INTOSAI Committees or Working Groups are also usually involved, by offering important subject matter expertise. The programmes may encompass a whole region, or more commonly, clusters of SAIs within a region. In our experience this is an effective and sustainable approach that secures cost efficiency, in that it reaches a large group of SAIs, and addresses SAIs with similar needs and challenges. It also contributes to building regional networks, peer to peer learning and south-south cooperation and utilizes the knowledge and close interaction that the regional structures have with their members.

For more about IDI go to http://www.idi.no.

IDI Strategic planning handbook PDF (1,8 MB)
Stock-taking report 2010 PDF (1,3 MB)
Stock-taking report 2014 PDF (1,5 MB)
Stock-taking report 2017  PDF (1,9 MB)
Stock-taking report 2017 Annex PDF (3,6 MB)

 

About INTOSAI congresses

The Congress is the supreme organ of INTOSAI and is composed of all Members. Once every three years it holds regular meetings, which are chaired by the hosting SAI. It offers all INTOSAI members an opportunity to share experiences, discuss issues, and pass resolutions and recommendations to improve government accountability worldwide. Participants include delegations of member SAIs as well as representatives of the United Nations, the World Bank and other international and professional organizations.

About INTOSAI congresses PDF (10 kB)

 

IXX INCOSAI - Mexico

Mexico Accords PDF (348 kB)
INTOSAI JOURNAL 2008 PDF (3 MB)

 

XX INCOSAI - South Africa

XX INSOCAI - INTOSAI JOURNAL 2011 PDF (3,4 MB)
XX INCOSAI - Congress Accords PDF (412 kB)
XX INCOSAI - Congress Declaration PDF (21 kB)

 

XXI INCOSAI - China

XXI INCOSAI - Congress Accords PDF (366 kB)
XXI INCOSAI - Congress Declaration PDF (1 MB)
XXI INCOSAI - INTOSAI JOURNAL 2014 PDF (5,5 MB)

 

XXII INCOSAI - Abu Dhabi

Due Process 2016 PDF (866 kB)
01. Sustainable Development - Theme I Paper PDF (4,5 MB)
01. Professionalisation -Theme II Paper PDF (2,1 MB)
XXII Congress Abu Dhabi Declaration PDF (565 kB)

 

XXIII INCOSAI - Russia

XXIII Congress Moscow Declaration PDF (575 kB)
01. Theme I Principal Paper English PDF (346 kB)
02. Theme I Discussion Paper PDF (855 kB)
03. Theme II Principal Paper English PDF (344 kB)
04. Theme II Discussion Paper PDF (360 kB)

 

INTOSAI Strategic plan

INTOSAI Strategic plan 2017 PDF (1,57 MB)
INTOSAI Strategic plan 2011 - 2016 PDF (1,1 MB)
INTOSAI Strategic plan 2005 - 2010 PDF (480 kB)

 

INTOSAI and other products

Art of Audit - Eight stories published by SAI of Netherlands PDF (3,1 MB)
INTOSAI Committees Handbook 2019 En PDF (688 kB)
INTOSAI First 50 years  PDF (2,5 MB)

 

SAO SR in international environment

SAO SR is a member of  INTOSAI, EUROSAI, Contact Committee of the Heads of the SAIs of EU and European Court of Audits (ECA), SAI V4+2 as well as other international working groups. The SAO SR representatives in international working groups are elected by the SAO SR President. Their activities and rules of their representations follow the internal SAO SR Directive.
 

INTOSAI

  • INTOSAI Professional Standards Committee (Výbor INTOSAI pre profesionálne štandardy) - SAO SR is a member.  
  • INTOSAI Sub-committee on Compliance Audit (Podvýbor INTOSAI pre kontrolu súladu pri Výbore pre profesionálne štandardy) - SAO SR is a member.
  • INTOSAI Capacity Building Committee, its Subcommittee on Peer Review (Výbor INTOSAI pre budovanie kapacít, Podvýbor INTOSAI pre peer review) - SAO SR is its chair 
  • INTOSAI Working Group on IT Audit (Pracovná skupina INTOSAI pre kontrolu informačných technológií) - SAO SR is a member.
  • INTOSAI Working Group on Environmental Auditing (Pracovná skupina INTOSAI pre kontrolu životného prostredia) - SAO SR is a member.
  • INTOSAI Working Group on Key National Indicators (Pracovná skupina INTOSAI pre kľúčové národné ukazovatele) - SAO SR is a member.
     

EUROSAI

  • EUROSAI Working Group on Information Technologies - SAO SR is a member
  • EUROSAI Working Group on Environmental Auditing - SAO SR is a member
  • EUROSAI Working Task Force for Municipality Auditing - SAO SR is a member

 

CONTACT COMMITTEE of the Heads of the SAIs of EU and European Court of Auditors

  • Working Group on Value Added Tax (Pracovná skupina pre činnosť v oblasti DPH) - SAO SR is a member. 
  • Network on Fiscal Policy Audit (Sieť NKI pre kontrolu fiškálnej politiky) - SAO SR is a member. 
  • Network on Lisbon Strategy / Strategy EU 2020 audit (Sieť NKI pre kontrolu Lisabonskej stratégie / Stratégie EÚ 2020) – SAO SR is an observer.

 

Other working groups

  • International Boards of Auditors for NATO - IBAN (Kontaktný pracovník pre styk s Medzinárodnou radou audítorov pre NATO) – SAO SR is a member with a liaison officer
  • Liaison Officer Concerning the Statements of preliminary findings of ECA (Kontaktný pracovník pre otázky týkajúce sa vyhlásení o predbežných zisteniach EDA) - SAO SR is a member with a liaison officer.  
  • Liaison Officer for DG EC for Budget (Kontaktný pracovník pre generálne riaditeľstvo EK pre rozpočet) - SAO SR is a member with a liaison officer.