Conclusions from the UN/INTOSAI Symposium and interview with Dr Åsa Persson

29.04.2024

Over 200 SAIs gathered in Vienna for the 26th UN/INTOSAI Symposium held 16-18 April. The event was organized by the General Secretariat of INTOSAI, SAI Austria and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA). The topic was Sustainable Development Goal 13 on climate action and Vivi Niemenmaa from the INTOSAI WGEA Secretariat acted as the technical chair of the meeting. The event was built around panel discussions on SAI practices in auditing the impact of climate change, enabling conditions for auditing climate action, as well as impacts of climate change audits. We heard 27 presentations, one leading statement and four leading comments from SAIs from around the world.

You can find the conclusions and recommendations of the Symposium on the INTOSAI website.

The event concluded with a keynote speech by Research Director Åsa Persson from the Stockholm Environment Institute. The speech addressed systemic entry points for climate policy evaluations and assessments by broadening the assessments from single policy instruments towards assessing policy mixes, whole-of-economy, and synergies and trade-offs with the SDGs. She stressed that it is time to think beyond the division of climate change mitigation and adaptation as they are interlinked: Less success on mitigation means more dramatic climate change impacts and adaptation needs.

We interviewed Dr Persson after the meeting, and you can now hear her key messages in our Youtube video.