Auditing climate-related projects: Training for trainers

September 4, 2019

©UNDP Bangladesh

Climate change has become a critical developmental issue for Bangladesh as it brings about substantial negative impact on the national economy. The government has adopted relevant policies, plans, strategies, and taken up different projects to lessen the impact of climate change.

As the Supreme Audit Institution of the country, the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General (OCAG) of Bangladesh can play an important role in helping the government to improve its response to climate change and investment in climate relevant programmes by conducting an effective audit.  

Auditing government’s response to climate change require a thorough understanding of climate science, along with issues, impacts, and actions related to climate change. For this, OCAG auditors must be adequately trained, so that they can asses the government’s response through an appropriate lens.

 

To this end, United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Inclusive Budgeting and Financing for Climate Resilience (IBFCR) Project developed the ‘Training Manual on Climate Performance Audit Planning’, for training OCAG auditors and build their capacity to work out realistic plans to before executing an audit programme for climate-related projects.

Using the training manual, a group of 21 mid-level cadre officers of OCAG have been trained by IBFCR Project from August 19-22, 2019 on Climate Performance Audit Planning at Financial Management Academy (FIMA), the training outfit of OCAG. The programme aimed to build a base of master trainers who can carry forward the government’s initiatives to tackle climate change.

The training course was conducted by experienced instructors using lectures, group discussions, exercises, case studies, quiz etc along with practical examples of climate change issues.