The Accounting Chamber of Ukraine and the International Board of Auditors for NATO Signed a Memorandum of Cooperation

On 22 May, at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Chairwoman of the Accounting Chamber of Ukraine Olha Pishchanska and Chair of the NATO International Board of Auditors (IBAN) Sébastien Lepers signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation. IBAN member Karl Mancinelli also participated in the meeting.

For the Accounting Chamber of Ukraine, the signing of the document marked the result of long-standing joint efforts and an important milestone in the development of professional cooperation with the International Board of Auditors for NATO. At the same time, for IBAN this is the first memorandum concluded with a Supreme Audit Institution of a state that is not currently a NATO member.

The document establishes the framework for further cooperation between the Accounting Chamber of Ukraine and IBAN in the field of external public audit and defines mechanisms for developing professional partnership in accordance with INTOSAI international standards.

The signed Memorandum provides for:

– exchange of professional experience and best practices aimed at improving external public audit methods and professional standards;

– support for external audit activities of international organisations within the INTOSAI framework;

– staff training and promotion of professional secondments;

– conducting joint audits;

– exchange of professional documentation and open information related to the activities of the parties.

During the meeting, the parties also discussed practical areas for future cooperation. In particular, they addressed the harmonization of audit approaches in the security and defense sector, the expansion of professional exchange in the area of oversight of defense resources, as well as the launch of exchanges of audit methodologies in the fields of financial audit and performance audit.

Special attention during the meeting was given to the practical experience of the Accounting Chamber of Ukraine in auditing the security and defense sector under martial law, as well as approaches to overseeing the use of resources in areas critically important for the state.

Olha Pishchanska thanked the colleagues for their openness to cooperation and noted that the signed Memorandum creates new opportunities for professional partnership, the development of audit approaches, and strengthened cooperation between Ukraine and NATO in the field of external public audit.

For his part, Sébastien Lepers highlighted the importance of signing the Memorandum with the Accounting Chamber of Ukraine and particularly emphasised the professional interest in the Ukrainian experience of auditing the security and defence sector during wartime, presented the day before.

It should be recalled that, during the annual meeting of the International Board of Auditors for NATO (IBAN)* and the Supreme Audit Institutions of NATO member states held at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, the Accounting Chamber of Ukraine presented practical insights into how a prolonged war changes approaches to public governance, resource management, and public audit.