• Cart
Log in

Log in

home page banner blank


Program News


A Celebration of the Past and New Beginnings at the Fellows’ Graduation

2016-2017 International FellowsCongratulations to our 2016-2017 International Fellows, who graduated on May 18, 2017. They have now returned home to their countries, ready to make an impact in their Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs).

We celebrated the Fellows’ achievement at a ceremony in Ottawa with many partners of our international program, including Global Affairs Canada, the three Offices of the Auditor General that hosted this year’s Fellowships (Canada, Alberta, and New Brunswick), representatives from the Fellows’ respective High Commissions here in Canada, and the OAGs of the City of Ottawa and of Nova Scotia.

During their nine months here in Canada, the Fellows completed placements at the host OAGs, participated in a series of professional development courses delivered by our Foundation as well as by their host Offices, and, with guidance from Canadian mentors, each developed a plan for a performance audit that will be carried out once home.

The 2016-2017 graduates are:

Graduation Booklet

Read more about the Fellows and their audit plans in the 2016-2017 Graduation Booklet.

Office of the Auditor General of Canada

  • Roseline Nouetsa Simo of Cameroon
    Audit plan topic: Collection of Mining Revenues in Cameroon

  • Regina Safoaa Brobbey of Ghana
    Audit plan topic: Sustainability of Sports Stadia in Ghana

Office of the Auditor General of Alberta

  • Ha Minh Trung of Vietnam
    Audit plan topic: Reducing the Use of Regular Plastic Bags in Ho Chi Minh City

  • Nguyen Thuan Lien of Vietnam
    Audit plan topic: Delivery of Public Telecommunications Services by 2020 in Vietnam

Office of the Auditor General of New Brunswick

  • Renee Elorm Tay of Ghana
    Audit plan topic: Girls’ Education in Ghana – Implementation of the G-PASS Programme and Sustenance of the Girls’ Education Unit

  • Mariam Francis Chikwindo of Tanzania
    Audit plan topic: Management of Pesticides in Tanzania

Celebrating Our History and Our Future: Remarks from our CEO

John ReedThe Fellowships are part of our International Legislative Oversight Program, which builds performance audit and legislative oversight capacity in Cameroon, Ghana, Tanzania, and Vietnam. The five-year program will end later this year.

This year’s graduation fell on a big day for the Foundation: We announced our new name and launched our new website earlier that day.

In that context, John Reed, our CEO and the emcee for the graduation ceremony, reflected on the past year and the ending of this program, as well as the bright future that lies ahead for the Fellows and the Foundation:

Today is a historic day for us.

It is a celebration of the past, as we mark the graduation of our Fellows, approach the end of this five-year international program, and reflect on our rich history of accomplishments.

But it is also a celebration of new beginnings. Today we unveiled our new website and announced our new name: the Canadian Audit and Accountability Foundation. And, most importantly, we are celebrating the new beginnings for the Fellows who are about to return home, where they will unleash their talents and surely become excellent leaders at their SAIs.

Looking back on this year, there are many highlights from the international program. Not only did we have an outstanding class of Fellows, but we also held our first oversight workshop for the National Assembly of Vietnam, helped SAIs improve their audit selection and multi-year planning through an internship program and a new Discussion Paper, and engaged with INTOSAI to help SAIs audit the implementation of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

And yet again this year, we had tremendous support from Canadian partners. This included the audit offices that hosted the Fellows – the OAG of New Brunswick for the first time, the OAG of Alberta continuing its close relationship with the SAI of Vietnam, and the OAG of Canada, our longest-standing partner. In addition, the OAGs of British Columbia, Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Nova Scotia all contributed to our international program’s capacity building activities.

Today is also a time to reflect on this five-year program and on our decades of international support. The numbers tell the story of our success:

  • Twenty-eight Fellows graduated during this five-year program. That makes 251 graduate Fellows in total, from 53 countries. Graduates have gone on to great success—11 have become Auditors General and many more have held very senior positions in their offices.

  • We held 36 workshops abroad during this program, reaching nearly 800 participants from the four countries’ SAIs and 140 participants from the oversight committees. Since we began giving international workshops in 2007, we have held 92 workshops in total, reaching nearly 2000 participants from audit offices and nearly 400 from oversight committees.

  • Sixteen senior managers from the SAIs participated in our internships during this program and developed strategic projects for their offices.

But the numbers and our impact don’t end there. Over our rich 37-year history, we have:

  • trained more than 8000 performance auditors in Canada through the delivery of more than 400 courses;

  • advanced the state of practice of Public Accounts Committees in Canada and abroad, having delivered more than 60 workshops based on our seminal research, guidance and tools for strengthening parliamentary oversight;

  • staged 30 conferences or symposia, reaching more than 12,000 individuals;

  • released more than 75 research publications, guidance documents, and discussion papers; and

  • entered more than 5000 audits and other documents into our Audit News Database.

And when I think about how advanced the state of performance audit, parliamentary oversight, and financial accountability is here in Canada today—and in the countries we have supported—I can’t help but wonder could it possibly have happened without the influence of the Foundation? I don’t think so.

And there is much more to come. Among other initiatives:

  • We are excited to soon be publishing our newest Practice Guide, on Auditing Mining Revenues and Financial Assurance for Site Remediation.

  • We will be releasing Accountability in Action, our new guidance for parliamentary oversight committees.

  • We are expanding our unique training and networking events, such as our Emerging Leaders program and the pan-Canadian Forum for Municipal Auditors.

  • We are poised to become a global leader on auditing gender equality with the publication of our upcoming Practice Guide to Auditing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, on which we are partnering with the International Instititute for Siustainable Development, Women Deliver, and the INTOSAI Development Initiative.

  • We are beginning to explore how we can help build audit and oversight capacity in First Nations communities here in Canada.

And with all of that said, as we reflect on our history and look ahead to new beginnings, I can’t help but marvel at what a uniquely, truly, and quintessentially “Canadian” organization we are. With widespread support from so many organizations across the country, and with individual contributions from thousands of Canadians, what could be more Canadian than working together towards the greater public good?

Tonight, we wish our graduating Fellows the best as they prepare to return home. And we hope that they will always consider themselves “Canadians.”