SAI Leadership and Stakeholder Meeting SAI Contributions to

SAI Leadership and Stakeholder Meeting: SAI Contributions to the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals ADVANCING SDG IMPLEMENTATION, FOLLOW-UP AND REVIEW IN SIDS – SHARING EXPERIENCES ACROSS REGIONS THE PACIFIC EXPERIENCE UN Headquarters 19 -20 July 2018 Prepared by: Ms. Claire Kelly, PASAI Performance Audit Consultant and Ms. Joyce Mesepitu, Audit Manager, Solomon Islands Office of the Auditor-General. 1

ASAI EMBERS 2

Audit Objective 1: To what extent has the government adapted the 2030 agenda into its national context? v Integration into national context – § SDGs are aligned with National Development Plans (NDP), but linkage with lower level plans not evident; § Generally high level taskforces provided coordination across sectors; v Alignment of budget, policies and programmes – § Budget alignment in place in only a few countries; 3

Audit Objective 1: cont’d v Policy integration and coordination – § coordination between agencies and across different levels of government is evident in only a few countries; § Samoa has an active SDG/NDP taskforce comprised of all relevant line ministries; v Creating partnerships and engaging stakeholders – § limited attention by most governments but some good practices emerging … § Fiji - participatory budget processes; v Inclusiveness – § robust practices in some countries but not comprehensive across all. 4

SAI Solomon Islands Audit Objective 1 v Integration into national context: § SIG has incorporated the SDGs into its NDS (National Development Strategy); § NDS and SDG implementation is defined in the Government’s Medium Term Development Plan; § Ministry of Development Planning & Aid Coordination (MDPAC) appointed as the focal coordinating ministry; v Alignment of budget, policies and programmes § SIG has a Budget Coordination Committee for recurrent and development programmes 5

SAI Solomon Islands Audit Objective 1 cont’d v Policy integration and coordination § SIG through MDPAC has established an NDS Implementation Oversight Committee including non-government representatives v Creating partnerships and engaging stakeholders § Consultations and awareness programs with a wider range of stakeholders were conducted at the national level and § at the provincial level including churches, NGOs, FBOs and communities. 6

Audit Objective 2: Has the government identified and secured resources and capacities (means of implementation) needed to implement the 2030 Agenda? v. Identifying resources – financial resources identified across all countries, but little attention devoted to harnessing other necessary capacities; v. Mobilising partnerships – good practice examples with Development Partners (Solomon Islands) but little attention to other types of partnership; v. Managing risks – no jurisdiction was actively managing risks to securing the required resources and capacities. 7

SAI Solomon Islands Audit Objective 2 v. Resources – Funding § SIG has an annual Budget process; § Resources for development programs are sourced from domestic and external funding § Poor performance against aid effectiveness indicators v. Capacities § There are significant capacity deficits in line agencies for budgeting, planning and project management § SIG National Statistics Office (SINSO)is required to compile and disseminate official statistics for the wider Solomon Islands. v. Mobilising partnerships § SIG has an Aid Management and Development Cooperation Policy and Partnership Framework for Effective Development Cooperation. § Implementation is limited by the lack of a mutual accountability framework. 8

Audit Objective 3: Has the Government established a mechanism to monitor, follow-up, review, and report on the progress towards the implementation of the 2030 Agenda? v Responsibility, mechanisms and processes of monitoring, follow-up, review, and reporting are in place – § responsibility assigned but little attention given to developing required mechanisms and processes, v Performance indicators and data – § line agency performance indicators and data management processes continue to be a challenge but some countries are trialling innovations, v Communication to stakeholders – § limited attention to keeping key partners and stakeholders informed. 9

SAI Solomon Islands Audit Objective 3 MDPAC, the central agency responsible for monitoring, evaluating and reporting on the progress for the implementation of SDGs, has: vestablished a national Monitoring and Evaluation Performance Framework; vreleased its first performance report in 2017 on the NDS which provides an overview of SI’s development performance against the target indicators under the objectives of the NDS 2016 -2035; v. Developed a reporting template where all line ministries are required to report bi-annually on their performance including the development programs, projects implemented including the budgets Solomon Islands National Statistics Office (SINSO) has data for SDGs for reporting purposes. However, there is no interface with MDPAC. 10

Challenges for PASAI audit teams and lessons learned: Challenge: Team composition and skills – most teams lacked an in-depth understanding of country governance arrangements; Lesson: Pay close attention to team composition – both SAI Cook Islands and SAI Solomon Islands included more senior auditors with a good appreciation of country governance arrangements. Challenge: Engaging with stakeholders: This is a new task for the majority of our Pacific SAIs; Lesson: Continue to develop localised communications strategies with our SAIs.

Challenge: Concepts and terminology eg. Whole of Government. Our teams struggled with new concepts and terminology. Lesson: v Invest more time and resources into the development of localised Audit Work Plans and build in a review point; v incorporate a risk based approach to the provision of onsite support into the design of future audits; and v use the reporting meeting as an opportunity to address identified shortfalls. 12

Conclusion v National system preparedness to implement the SDGs is not uniform across the Pacific countries audited v The objective of individual SAI audit reports is to identify gaps in national system preparedness and make practical and achievable recommendations to their governments v The regional report on national system preparedness will provide regional stakeholders with an independent assessment of achievements to date and where more needs to be done 13