First Sharaka-II theme closed in The Hague
The closing conference of the first regional theme of Sharaka-II was held last week. Sharaka-II is a cooperation programme between the Netherlands Court of Audit and supreme audit institutions (SAIs) in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA region). ‘Sharaka’ is Arabic for ‘partnership’.
Delegations from the SAIs of Algeria, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, the Palestinian Territories and Tunisia came to The Hague to share their ideas and experiences with each other. The current situation in Sudan unfortunately prevented our Sudanese colleagues from joining us. The participating SAIs are auditing policy themes in the field of SDG 11: Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. They are actively involving civil society organisations in their audits.
In his welcoming speech, Acting President Ewout Irrgang highlighted the importance of supreme audit institutions in this area. “We can oversee how public money is spent to improve the lives of citizens and hold people accountable”.
The audits were launched in June 2022 and the lessons learned and experiences gained were shared on several occasions last year, both online and in physical workshops. Last week’s conference concentrated on the reporting and publication phase. Focus themes that were considered included:
- involvement of civil society organisations;
- reporting structure;
- internal and external communication.
Themes for the next regional cooperation, which is expected to start in November 2023, were also discussed during the week. The Sharaka-II programme runs from 2022 to 2025. It is a follow-up to a previous cooperation programme.