Independent Audit Advisory Committee Concludes Forty-Ninth Session at Headquarters, 19-21 February

The Independent Audit Advisory Committee of the United Nations (IAAC) held its forty-ninth session from 19 to 21 February 2020 at United Nations Headquarters in New York.  The session was presided over by the Chair, Janet St. Laurent.  The Vice-Chair, Richard Quartei Quartey, and the two newly appointed members of the IAAC, namely Dorothy Bradley and Anton Kosyanenko, were in attendance.

The IAAC’s deliberations included the finalization of the Committee’s report on the peacekeeping support account budget of the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) for the fiscal year 2020/21.

In addition, the IAAC held meetings with:

1. Atul Khare, Under-Secretary-General for Operational Support, on:  (i) operational matters, including reform, enterprise risk management (ERM) and the implementation of oversight recommendations; and (ii) challenges and opportunities in the Department of Operational Support, together with the procedures in place for embedding ERM in the Department.
2. Fatoumata Ndiaye, Under-Secretary-General for Internal Oversight Services, on her vision for the Office; and with senior managers regarding a wide range of matters, including:  (i) the status of vacant posts; (ii) utilization of the peacekeeping budget; (iii) the status of the peacekeeping workplan implementation; and (iv) the budget proposal under the support account for peacekeeping operations.
3. Patrick Carey, Acting Assistant Secretary-General for the Office of Information and Communications Technology, on:  (i) the issue of cybersecurity risk; and (ii) how cybersecurity risk is being handled within the Organization and in the context of the ICT Network of the High-Level Committee on Management.
4. Pedro Guazo, Director of Finance, on behalf of the Controller on:  (i) the peacekeeping budget of OIOS for 2020/21; (ii) the status of the implementation of Umoja, especially as it relates to the Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) module; and (iii) the financial situation.
5. Christophe Monier, Director of the Business Transformation and Accountability Division, on:  (i) the status of the implementation of recommendations of oversight bodies; (ii) the status of the enterprise risk management and the accountability system of the Organization; (iii) the analytical services of the Division, and whether the Division sees value in having a fully functional GRC module in Umoja; and (iv) the delegation of authority including monitoring of the same.
6. The Audit Operations Committee of the Board of Auditors, on:  (i) best practices, issues and trends apparent in the financial statements of the Organization; (ii) coordination and cooperation among oversight bodies; and (iii) the outcomes of IAAC deliberations, including the meeting with UN system oversight committees, held in December 2019.
7. Patricia Nemeth, President of the Staff Union, on:  (i) accountability framework; (ii) conduct and discipline; (iii) ERM; (iv) organizational culture and (v) other matters of interest to the work of the Committee.

The next (fiftieth) session of the IAAC is scheduled for April 2020.

For further information on the work of the IAAC, please see the Committee’s website at:  www.un.org/ga/iaac or contact the Committee’s Executive Secretary, Moses Bamuwamye, at e-mail:  bamuwamye@un.org; tel.:  +1 212 963 0788.