Turkish Court of Accounts and UN Türkiye sign Declaration of Intent to strengthen their collaboration

Turkish Court of Accounts, United Nations Resident Coordinator’s Office (RCO), and UNDP in Türkiye signed a Declaration of Intent (DoI) today in Ankara to further strengthen their collaboration.

Before the signing ceremony, the toolkit for Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) auditors co-designed by the United Nations (UN) and Turkish Court of Accounts (TCA) was launched.

President of the Turkish Court of Accounts Metin Yener said the signing of the Declaration of Intent will further improve the cooperation between the UN and TCA. “The experience gained from this collaboration will also have reflections in the international community” he added.

Speaking at the event UN Resident Coordinator Alvaro Rodriguez emphasized the importance of UN and TCA collaboration. “The evolving cooperation between the UN system and the Turkish Court of Accounts will contribute to the efforts of Türkiye in advancing SDGs. I hope the signing of the DoI and the launch of the SDG Auditors’ tool kit is the beginning of a new strategic collaboration” he said.

UNDP Resident Representative Louisa Vinton underlined the fact that without an audit approach, it is not possible to understand where we are with the progress of the SDGs, what is achieved, what is not yet achieved, and what we still need to do. “If you can’t measure it you can not manage it” she added.

SDG Audit Recommentations firsts of its kind

UN RCO Partnerships and Development Finance Officer Bülent Açıkgöz said the toolkit on SDG audits issued by the European Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (EUROSAI) is first of its kind and a flagship knowledge product.

Turkish Court of Accounts, Office of the UN Resident Coordinator, UNDP, and the UN Good Governance Result Group members in Türkiye jointly worked on the toolkit.

SDGs are increasingly becoming integral elements of national and sub-national planning and service delivery processes globally. For this reason, SDG audit processes to assess the performance of the concerned institutions in terms of preparedness for and implementation of SDGs is becoming very important and critical.

Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) play a crucial role with their institutional mandates and contribute to the efficiency, accountability, effectiveness, and transparency of public administrations. SAIs can assess the preparedness of public institutions for implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and come up with recommendations to secure a whole-of-government approach.

During the event, TCA Principal Auditor Berna Erkan gave information on the tool kit titled “UN-SAI Country-Level Collaboration on SDG Audits: Recommendations for Auditors”.

Erkan said the toolkit provides a set of recommendations for the SDG Auditor on the potential areas of interaction between SAIs and the UN system. She also mentioned the next step will be to jointly disseminate the use of the toolkit across the SAIs globally. 

You can access the toolkit at: https://turkiye.un.org/en/233304-un-sai-country-level-collaboration-sdg…