On October 14 the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation and the Audit Board of the Republic of Indonesia held a bilateral online seminar on managing international relations.

At the first session the attendees discussed the specific features of the SAIs’ international activities amid the СOVID-19 pandemic, the strategy for cooperation with international partners and the experience of organizing international events. Timur Makhmutov, Director of the Department for International and Regional Cooperation of the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation, described the principal activities of the Department for International and Regional Cooperation and stressed that international cooperation is carried out both according to bilateral agreements and memoranda and in the framework of Accounts Chamber’s INTOSAI Presidency politics.

“Our way here is to show that the international communication and exchange of experience on the international level gives not only food for thought, but might make the work of auditors more efficient,”

— Mr. Makhmutov said as he responded to questions from his Indonesian colleagues.

Selvia Vivi Devianti, Director of Public Relations and International Cooperation of the Audit Board of Indonesia, mentioned that the SAI would soon form a new department engaged in external auditing of the UN’s institutions. The speaker also noted that the Audit Board aimed to increase the importance of the SAI’s participation in international events:

We enforce our officials and staff to take part in the international activities as experts, because we have a lot of knowledge in the field of audit and standards.

The second session was dedicated to auditing international organizations. Elena Boitsova, Director of the Financial Audit Department, and Denis Strizheusov, Deputy Director of the Financial Audit Department, shared the experience of the Accounts Chamber in this area and mentioned the Accounts Chamber’s participation in the capacity of experts in the work of the UN Technical group of External Auditors.

“Another topic that is coming to the agenda is ESG accounting (the environmental, social, and governance reporting) and ESG auditing. As far as this area is evolving, it’s a crucial topic to touch and cooperate as currently nobody knows how to do the ESG audit of public engagements in a proper way. We need to look in the context of the ESG. One of the topics that is important to achieve is ESG development through the Internet of Things (so called “IoT”),

— Denis Strizheusov stressed in his speech.

Yudi Ramdan Budiman, Deputy External Auditor of the Audit Board of the Republic of Indonesia, representing Indonesia’s SAI, described the specifics of auditing the IAEA and the International Maritime Organization.

One thing that is very important in regard to the international audit engagement is about how we have cooperation with relative units in our SAI. We interact with the Division of Human Resources on how to recruit auditors for international audit,”

— Yudi Ramdan Budiman said.

Summarizing the seminar, Selvia Vivi Devianti noted that

“in the global world we cannot just wait and contemplate. We should create opportunities. Cooperation and communication are the answers to this matter.”