The final day of the Forum started with the outcomes of the two Plenary Sessions on the two main Themes of the Congress.

'When we first started to work on the Themes, it became clear that they generated a lot of interest in the audit community. Yesterday's Plenary Sessions confirmed that yet again,' Aleksei Kudrin, the INTOSAI Chair, stressed. 'Both Plenary Sessions witnessed a lively discussion. We talked about auditors of the future, the skills they should have. When I followed the discussion, I realised how acutely auditors experienced the problems they tackled in their everyday work, how interested they were to search for and find solutions. It is because we love our work. We want the resources of our countries to be used efficiently, economies to develop, and people to live better.'

The central message of the discussions formed the basis of the final discussion papers on the Themes and the main document of the Congress, the Moscow Declaration, which has been adopted today by a majority vote.

All the delegates stressed the high level of preparation of the declaration, its compliance with the basic principles of supreme audit institutions, namely transparency and independence.
'We wanted the Declaration to be as instrumental as possible, so that it could help every SAI in promoting new methods and instruments,' Aleksei Kudrin, the INTOSAI Chair, said upon presenting the main outcome of the Congress to the delegates.

Also on Friday, Mr Kudrin signed a number of agreements on joint and parallel audits. For example, there will be a joint audit of the Russian-Armenian University together with the SAI of Armenia, and a parallel audit with the SAI of Slovenia with a view to audit the implementation of intergovernmental agreements in the areas of culture, science and education.

Today there has been a meeting between the Chairman of the Accounts Chamber and Klaus-Heiner Lehne, the President of the European Court of Auditors. The parties exchanged opinions on the main issues of the public audit development and outlined the directions for further collaboration; in particular, in 2020 a bilateral seminar is planned on the SAI transformation and knowledge exchange in the area of strategic planning, capacity building, the development of environmental methodology and audit.

The Congress ended with the parallel sessions on SDG implementation audit, on a SAI's role in the fight against corruption, and on gender equality.

Mr Dmitry Zaitsev, the auditor from the Accounts Chamber, took part in the discussion on SDGs. He described the new mission of the Working Group on SDGs and key sustainable development indicators headed by the Accounts Chamber. 'We want to become a platform for knowledge sharing for the INTOSAI members on SDG audit issues, promote projects on practical usage of key sustainable development indicators for their achievement assessment. In Russia we also work towards our national goals and projects. The Accounts Chamber conducts relevant audits, and we want to introduce our best practices into the work of INTOSAI in the area of SDG audit,' he said.

This was the final day of INCOSAI XXIII. The next Congress is taking place in Brazil in 2022.