GUID - 5202 - Sustainable Development: The Role of Supreme Audit Institutions

Summary

The guide sets out to explain the concept of sustainable development. It also assesses the role that SAIs might play in auditing national progress towards sustainable development.

The document provides a guide as to what may be possible combined with practical examples drawn from the experience of a range of SAIs.

This guideline comprises four parts:

Part 1 provides essential background. It defines sustainable development and provides an overview of how the concept of sustainable development may be reflected in the strategies, policies and operations of governments and individual agencies.
Part 2 explains how governments have set about developing frameworks and national strategies for pursuing sustainable development objectives and considers the opportunities these might offer to SAIs for review.
Part 3 examines how the concept of sustainable development has been applied to individual policies or programs, and the role played by SAIs in auditing how well this has been done.
Part 4 considers the steps SAIs may need to take to develop their abilities to undertake audits in the field of sustainable development.