One of the INTOSAI Working Group on Environmental Auditing (WGEA) focus areas in 2020-2022 is climate finance. SAI USA has led the work package and the WGEA will publish the report “Auditing climate finance: research and audit criteria for Supreme Audit Institutions” at the 21st INTOSAI WGEA Assembly taking place in 4 – 6 July 2022 in hybrid format. The report will summarize key audit approaches and tools that can be used to audit climate finance, in both recipient and donor countries, and provide several audit case studies to illustrate the use of these tools.
One of the audit case studies was the SAI Finland performance audit on steering and effectiveness of international climate finance, published in 2021. The audit concluded that despite the government’s intention to scale up climate finance and direct half of it to climate change adaptation, there was no published plan on how this increasing finance should be allocated and what its specific objectives are. The audit also found out that it is difficult to form an overall picture of how effective the finance has been so far.
The audit recommended among other things that the Ministry for Foreign Affairs should draw up a public plan for how it will increase and allocate Finland’s international climate finance, justifying the choices and priorities. This audit resulted in, for example, the Finnish Foreign Ministry accepting a new climate finance plan in 2022.
For more information on the audit: Finland's international climate finance - Steering and effectiveness - National Audit Office of Finland (vtv.fi)
21st INTOSAI WGEA Assembly meeting: WGEA - Working Group on Environmental Auditing