A brown skinned female doctor with afro hair wearing a mask and blue rubber gloves holding a needle about to inject a young toddler in the arm sitting on a man's lap, both brown skinned and wearing masks

Due to the nature of the pandemic, much of the spending occurred through expidated processes and as a result, the risks of corruption, mismanagement and waste were heightened. Delivering large-scale Covid-19 vaccination programmes poses significant challenges for governments and raises troubling questions around global inequality. 

Wider concerns around equality and transparency have also been raised as countries review how spending actually occurred – who benefitted from this spending and who was left behind? 

This is where Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) play a critical role in holding governments to account in how they spend and allocate resources – particularly during times of crisis. For this reason, ACCA partnered with the INTOSAI Development Initiative to provide SAIs with support and resources to carry out post-Covid-19 compliance audits that focus on transparency, accountability and inclusivity – as conceived by IDI. 

We have produced three policy briefs, available in English, French, Spanish and Arabic, that focus on three specific aspects of Covid-19 spending and the important role transparent, accountable, and inclusive (TAI) audits can play in these areas: 

  • ‘Leaving no one behind’ through socioeconomic packages and vaccination rollouts
  • Procuring at speed
  • Transparency in public sending

Views from Auditors' General
 

Listen to the perspectives from several auditors' general

We have also produced a series of short videos from several auditors’ general discussing why SAIs should carry out these TAI audits and the important role SAIs can play moving forward.

Please note that each video has subtitles in English, French, Spanish and Arabic.  To change from the default English subtitles, go into settings on the YouTube player and, in the 'subtitles/CC' section, choose your preferred language from the available options.

 

As we progress out of the initial phases of the pandemic, it’s important to not only understand how scarce public resources were spent at critical moments but also how we learn lessons for the future. SAIs are at the heart of this – they are needed more than ever to promote accountability and ensure no one will be left behind when crisis strikes again. 

Further reading

Updated 9 July 2021.