OAG Somalia Peer Support Project 2023-2024 – IDI and AFROSAI-E

IDI in partnership with AFROSAI-E supports the Office of the Auditor General of Somalia (OAGS) to implement key strategic priorities. This includes support to ongoing audits, stronger internal governance, HR-management, professional development, stakeholder engagement and communication and general coordination with partners. Funding is provided by the Norwegian government. 

Over the last five years OAGS has demonstrated its commitment to play a strong role in enhancing public financial management in Somalia. The OAGS has submitted audit reports to the Parliament using internationally recognized standards, and these reports have got wide attention. The OAGS has also implemented several key strategic priorities set for 2017 – 2020 and 2021 – 2022 strategic plan, such as developing a new legal framework (not yet enacted), strengthened its internal governance systems and HR-management.

The OAGS has developed a strategic plan for 2023-2027 and requested the continuation of extensive peer support for this period. This strategic plan highlights 11 key strategic outputs or main deliverables which are assumed critical for OAGS to have an impact. This includes high-quality annual financial audits delivered on time for all MDAs, high-quality compliance audits delivered annually on major cross-cutting compliance challenges in the MDAs, such as compliance with the procurement regulations and regular and timely interaction with the stakeholders on the audit findings, recommendations, and emerging issues, among others. To successfully implement the strategic plan, external financial and technical support have been requested by OAGS. The Norwegian embassy has provided funding to IDI to cover project costs for 2021-2025.

The overall objective of the OAGS Peer-support Project 2023 – 2024 is to “Enable OAGS to achieve its planned strategic outputs related to core audits and stakeholder engagement for the period 2023-2024.” The six strategic outputs supported by the project include:

• High-quality financial audits delivered on time and for all MDAs
• High-quality compliance audits delivered annually on major compliance challenges
• High-quality forensic audits delivered on main issues fraud, waste and abuse related to the use of public funds.
• OAGS audit results are shared widely in public and there is regular interaction with citizens to increase visibility and for selecting the right audits and controls
• Regular and timely interaction with the Executive on the audit findings, recommendations, and emerging issues
• Regular and timely interaction with the Parliament on audit scrutiny and follow-up

The delivery of these strategic outputs is expected to enable achievement of the strategic outcomes of OAGS, especially the Parliament playing an active role in follow-up of audit recommendations and improved implementation of audit recommendation by the executive.

The overall objective is related to the OAGS mission which sums up the link between the strategic outputs, strategic outcomes and intended impact: “To conduct and produce high quality audit reports and recommendations to the parliament and president in order to enhance transparency and accountability of the Federal Government of Somalia for the benefit of Somali citizens”.

The focus on strategic outputs is based on the result-oriented approach of the OAGS strategic plan for 2023-2027. For the project, this focus on outputs involves prioritizing capacity development support in areas that are critical for delivery of the outputs targeted in the project.

The peer support project will provide support to enable OAGS meet the capacity needs to achieve the strategic output. Please see the Cooperation agreement for the expected results and roles of the partners.

To ensure robust and relevant support for all the six strategic output of OAGS, multiple mechanisms of support are needed in addition to the peer support project

The World Bank, other donors, and  some selected SAIs are also partners of OAGS. IDI seeks to have an advisory role for the effectiveness of external support and be the responsible provider of peer-support in cooperation with AFROSAI-E.