Speakers at a workshop here today called for an efficient climate finance governance through streamlining it with new audit process aimed at establishing accountability and performance monitoring to make the climate investments more effective.They also called for enhancing the recognition of national strategy on climate change in the key public finance management process and capacity building of the Finance Division and partnership with major stakeholders to maximize benefits of national and international climate finance.
The Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General (OCAG) and Inclusive Budgeting and Financing for Climate Resilience (IBFCR) Project of Finance Division supported by UNDP jointly organized the workshop on ‘Climate Performance Audit’ at Audit Bhaban, Kakrail here.
“Climate Change should come into sharper focus by OCAG while carrying out audit of different development projects/programmes,” said Masud Ahmed, Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of Bangladesh and the chief guest of the inaugural session of the workshop.
The CAG also underscored the need for changes in the approach of audit while strengthening its institutional and professional capacity. “Climate change should be a topical issue for all of us,” he added.
Speaking on the occasion as special guest secretary of the Finance Division Muslim Uddin Chowdhury said, “Our GDP growth would be there, but no more at the cost of climate. So in future OCAG will not report only on financial audit but concentrate more on making the report for common people as well.”
Secretary In-Charge of the Ministry of Environment and Forests Abdullah Al Mohsin Chowdhury, UNDP Country Director Sudipto Mukerjee were also present in the inaugural session of the workshop as special guests while Deputy Comptroller and Auditor General (Senior) Mohammed Iqbal Hossain was in the chair.
Abdur Rouf Talukder, National Project Director of IBFCR project and additional secretary of the Finance Division gave welcome address while Project Manager Ranjt Kumar Chakraborty gave a presentation on Climate Performance Audit Initiative.
Project Manager Ranjt Kumar Chakraborty in his presentation said his team has audited two climate projects being implemented with the fund from Bangladesh Climate Change Trust Fund (BCCTF) and Bangladesh Climate Change Resilience Fund (BCCRF) and found auditors’ limited exposure on the dynamics of climate change.
He also identified that- absorbing new knowledge and information on climate change by the auditors and applying them in their audit work, identifying suitable officers for the task, motivating the auditors to take up the new task requiring more analytical rigor and outdated guidelines are among the challenges to climate performance audit.
He suggested that auditors’ work should include examination government’s response to climate change and examination climate change adaptation and mitigation actions taken by various public and private sector organizations.
Moreover, auditors should have a broad understanding on the concept of climate change, climate change drivers, global and national measures on adaptation and mitigation, he opined, reports BSS.
