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Fellow Name: Florence Abaganwa

Country: Rwanda

Fellow’s home audit office: Office of the Auditor General of State Finances of Rwanda

Title: Senior Principal Auditor

Email: Florence.Abaganwa@oag.gov.rw, abagflo@gmail.com

Audit Plan Topic: Management of ambulances for hospitals and health centers – Rwanda Biomedical Center

Canadian Host Office: Office of the Auditor General of Alberta

Grad Quote: “I will continue improving on my leadership skills, lead by example and build trust, and enhance effective communication.”

Gallery (2023-2024):

Two experience images (2023-2024):

Decoration Color: Blue

Profile Headshot:

My Fellowship:

My Canadian placement:

Office of the Auditor General (OAG) of Alberta

My Canadian audit team:

I was part of a performance audit of the Alberta Broadband Strategy, led by Principal Byron Ofner.

My most valuable learning:

It was valuable to learn about leadership skills, by recognising my strengths and weaknesses; performance audit planning, particularly improving on audit documentation, scope and criteria; and risk assessment and related controls and fraud risk assessment. I also enjoyed learning about how to enhance communication through embracing available tools and incorporating gender and SDGs issues in audit projects.

How my Canadian colleagues and mentors helped me:

They helped me to improve my audit plan project through different organised discussions on risk assessment and controls, audit scoping and criteria documentation. They organised a meeting with emergency despatching staff to talk about their ambulance dispatching process that helped me to understand ambulance dispatching in Alberta and served as a bench-marking process. As well, they helped me become familiar with different places in Alberta—malls, markets, tours, art museums and games.

What I enjoyed most:

I enjoyed working with advanced staff, observing how they document audit work done using formal working papers, bringing the auditee on board through audit scope and criteria discussions, and the use of office communication and IT tools.

My audit plan:

I developed my audit plan with the guidance of my mentors at OAG Alberta, Principal Byron Ofner and Audit Manager Nancy Wang.

The connection to my country’s development priorities:

The Ministry of Health and Rwanda Biomedical Center have targeted, by 2024, to have a well-established network of health facilities with good geographical coverage and an adequate fleet of ambulances for pre-hospital and emergencies services. This includes:

• safe transportation of all patients to hospitals and health centers, especially in remote areas and hard to reach areas;
• ensuring the availability and efficient use of ambulance services, using high-level technologies and communication systems;
• analyzing the performance of the pre-hospital and emergency / ambulance services and the overall referral system from community to national levels.

Under the National Strategy for Transformation, Emergency Medical Services are covered under the “Social Transformation” pillar, priority 3, which is to: “enhance demographic dividend through ensuring access to quality health for all”, including to reduce maternal and child mortality. To achieve this, ambulances are needed for quick interventions in case of maternal and neonatal emergencies. This topic also aligns with Sustainable Development Goal 3, on good health and well-being. As well, Rwanda’s Health Sector Strategic Plan aims to contribute to SDG 5, on gender equality, by eliminating gender barriers to receiving essential health services.

How CAAF and my host office helped:

My host office helped me to improve on project documentation, risk assessment and controls, scoping, formulation of appropriate criteria and how to conclude on each criterion for a balanced report, and evidence collection methodology. From working with the Office of the City Auditor of Edmonton and from presentations by other audit offices, I learned about fraud risk assessment, follow-up on audit recommendations, and the use of different tools to communicate results or progress. Through challenge sessions, I further improved on risk controls, scoping the assignment, and incorporating the SDGs and a gender lens in the assignment. In courses with CAAF, I improved my leadership skills by recognising my strengths and weaknesses and learning how to build trust with others.

The skills and knowledge I improved by developing this plan:

• Improved audit planning and effective communication through utilization of available tools
• Considering the SDGs and applying a gender lens in audit assignments

My future impact:

The new knowledge I’m most excited to share with my colleagues:

To improve audit quality and speed up audit assignments, I will share knowledge on:

• Improving performance audit planning and effective communication using different tools
• Leading by example—building trust with my colleagues and coaching them to improve on their audit skills
• Fraud risk assessment and tracking of audit recommendations

The difference I hope to make:

I hope to:

• Contribute to OAG Rwanda achieving its mandate through improving on the quality of audit planning and reporting
• Incorporate a gender lens and SGD issues in audit assignments

My professional goals:

My goals are to continue improving my leadership skills and build trust, enhance effective communication (for fewer surprises), and incorporate the SDGs and a gender lens in audits.

My Experience Part 1:

The most Canadian thing I did was…

Snowy activities at Winterlude in Ottawa, hiking Jasper and Banff mountains, touring the CN Tower and Calgary Tower, visiting history and art museums, watching different games—baseball in Toronto, hockey in Ottawa, and American football in Edmonton—and trying different dishes like donair, Indian, hot pot, and Chinese cuisine.

My favourite cultural experience in Canada was…

Friendship and the culture of admitting mistakes

My Experience Part 2:

My Fellowship experience in one sentence:

Improved leadership skills, audit planning, and effective communication.

My Fellowship in a single word:

Growth opportunity.

Now that I have completed the Fellowship…

I will continue improving on my leadership skills, lead by example and build trust, and enhance effective communication.

Gender: Female

Florence joined the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) of States Finances of Rwanda in November 2010 as a financial and compliance auditor. In 2012, she joined the Performance Audit Department and today she is a Senior Principal Auditor leading a team focusing on performance audit assignments. She is involved in performance audits in different sectors and projects financed by different partners, training of new performance auditors, and review of work done by the team members. She also participated in planning and developing the OAG’s Stakeholder Engagement Strategy for 2018-2024.

Florence holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration, accounting option, from the University of Rwanda and is currently a student in the advanced level of the program for Certified Public Accountants–Kenya. She has completed the three-module performance audit course offered by the African Organizations of English-speaking Supreme Audit Institutions (AFROSAI-E) and participated in several training sessions on performance auditing and stakeholder engagement offered by CAAF, AFROSAI-E and INTOSAI.

My goals for the Fellowship

I hope to acquire skills and abilities from mentors that will allow me to effectively plan and execute audits that will contribute to the wellbeing of citizens, improve on leadership skills and gain expertise to incorporate a gender lens in audit assignments.

The impact I hope to make as a graduate Fellow

As a graduate Fellow, I plan to share my acquired skills with my colleagues and stakeholders at both the national and international level.