Peer to Peer Support to Supreme Audit Institutions

Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) have cooperated for decades. Within that international network of SAIs cooperation, individual SAIs developed many different forms of Peer to Peer (P2P) collaboration based on a common interest of involved institutions. Furthermore, P2P has been used by several countries to improve the transparency and accountability in public finance management within the context of development. However, this P2P cooperation is only to a limited extent systematic or coordinated.

The many different forms of P2P cooperation resulted in a large and diverse set of P2P modalities ranging from the more traditional exchange of professional experience to bilateral training and mentoring and study tours by regional organisations and twinning arrangements. P2P cooperation has also been used for joint or parallel audits in areas of common interest, even among which between states with troublesome relationships.

Even though P2P has been used as a cooperation modality for decades, it has not yet been the object of more systematic research, resulting in limited knowledge for decision-makers about both the existing modalities and their strengths and weaknesses. Today, the area of P2P seems unmanageably complex, and there is the risk of making suboptimal decisions. A reduction of complexity will allow decision-makers to make more informed decisions concerning P2P. Therefore, the European Commission has contracted Ecorys to carry out a study on the Peer to Peer cooperation modality between Supreme Audit Institutions worldwide.

This project’s combination of empirical studies and analysis of documents in cooperation with the stakeholder gives an exceptional opportunity to generate knowledge that is immediately useful to future P2P projects. The mapping and data collection can be used as a basis for additional studies with a different scientific angle. The project is expected to collect data for the period 2019 – 2022. We are aware that P2P activities were restricted and impacted by the pandemic and by the corona regulations in most of the world and therefore probably the P2P developed different characteristics during this two-year period.

The project started in July and will continue over the next year. For more information, please get in touch with the project manager, Mervie Likouete.