Audit Reports

As part of its annual workplan, the Office of Internal Audit conducted a follow-up review of the implementation of agreed actions from the 2019 internal audit of WFP Djibouti Corridor Management (AR/19/12), which was rated Unsatisfactory, i.e. internal controls, governance and risk management practices were either developed and not fully established or not functioning well. The audit report made four high priority and one medium priority observation with sixteen related agreed actions which were all due to be implemented by 31 December 2020.

At the time of development of the 2018-2022 Country Strategic Plan (CSP), Afghanistan ranked 169th of 188 countries in the Human Development Index. It had low levels of economic growth, high unemployment rates and over 54 percent of the population living below the poverty line. Years of conflict and widespread insecurity had exacerbated social, ethnic and cultural divisions, further contributing to instability. 2021, the year that the audit was conducted, saw a drastic change in the needs and conditions of implementation of WFP’s assistance. Audit work was carried out remotely from March to May 2021, prior to the declaration of a Level 3 emergency in Afghanistan on 30 September 2021. Focus was on:• beneficiary management;• cash-based transfers;• monitoring;• supply chain; and• finance. The field mission could not be carried out due to the evolving situation in Afghanistan from August 2021 and related constraints. The extent of work that could be completed remotely on Monitoring and Cash-based Transfers did not permit conclusions to be reached in these areas; nevertheless, reportable issues identified from the limited testing and assessment carried out were not extensive. Given the constraints described above and consequent limitations, it was not possible to arrive at an overall rating for the audit report on the basis of the work carried out.

As part of its annual work plan, the Office of Internal Audit conducted an audit of WFP’s operations in Syria that focused on the country office’s key processes: beneficiary management, cash-based transfers, supply chain, monitoring, and finance, and tailored reviews of the management of cooperating partners and humanitarian access. Based on the results of the audit, the Office of Internal Audit has come to an overall conclusion of partially satisfactory / some improvement needed.