Independent Audit Advisory Committee Holds Sixty-Fourth Session, 5-8 December

The Independent Audit Advisory Committee of the United Nations (IAAC) held its sixty-fourth session from 5 to 8 December, via hybrid format at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.  The session was presided over by the Chair, Imran Vanker.  All the other members of the Committee, namely:  Janet St. Laurent (Vice-Chair), Dorothy Bradley, Anton Kosyanenko and Suresh Sharma, were in attendance.

The Committee’s sixty-fourth session was highlighted by the successful eighth meeting of the representatives of the United Nations system oversight committees.  The meeting was opened by Guy Ryder, Under-Secretary-General for Policy, on behalf of the Secretary-General.  In attendance were the Chairs and/or other high-level representatives of approximately twenty-three United Nations entities’ audit and oversight Committees. The meeting saw a robust exchange of information on best practices and lessons learned.  The Committee expressed gratitude to the colleagues for their active and engaged participation.

In addition, the IAAC held meetings with:

1. Fatoumata Ndiaye, Under-Secretary-General for Internal Oversight Services, and with senior managers regarding a wide range of matters, including (i) the status of workplan implementation for the 2023/2024 fiscal year; (ii) the workplan and the corresponding budget proposal under the peacekeeping operations for the period July 2024 to June 2025; (iii) update on the status of the External Quality Assessments recommendations and conclusions; and (iv) further discussions on OIOS performance metrics;
2. Elia Armstong, Director, Ethics Office, on operationalizing the General Assembly resolution on the role of the IAAC in strengthening the ethics function and other matters of interest to the Committee.  The Committee agreed to finalize a proposed revision to its terms of reference in time for the seventy-ninth session of the General Assembly;
3. Chandramouli Ramanathan, Assistant Secretary-General, Controller on:  (i) the Office of Internal Oversight Services’ (OIOS) proposed budget for the support account for peacekeeping operations; (ii) the current financial situation and cash management; and (iii) other matters of high risk or importance to the work of the Committee.  The Committee agreed to continue to review and make recommendations on the budget proposal of OIOS at the sixty-fifth session in February 2024.
4. Bernardo Mariano Junior, Assistant Secretary-General, Chief Information Technology Officer, on (i) information technology risk identification and mitigation as outlined in the risk register; and (ii) other matters of interest to the Committee, including emerging risks such as those pertaining to artificial intelligence;
5. Christophe Monier, Director of the Business Transformation and Accountability Division, on:  (i) the status of the implementation of oversight bodies’ recommendations; (ii) update on the recommendations of the Board of Auditors that have been outstanding since 2015, and the OIOS recommendations that have been outstanding since 2013; (iii) status of the revised risk register; and (iv) a briefing on the alignment of the Statement of Internal Controls with the enterprise risk management process.

The IAAC also unanimously elected Imran Vanker as Chair and Anton Kosyanenko as Vice-Chair for the following year, starting 1 January 2024.

The Chair, on behalf of the IAAC, expressed his appreciation and utmost thanks to the Vice Chair Janet St. Laurent, who was completing her term of office, for her invaluable service to the United Nations. Chairman of the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary Questions), Osama Mahmoud Abdelkhalek Mahmoud, joined the Committee at its meeting on 8 November, and presented a plaque of appreciation to Ms. St. Laurent

The next (sixty-fifth) session of the IAAC is scheduled for 21-23 February 2024 in New York.

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; or tel.: +1 212 963 0788.