Valeriy Patskan: Efforts must be made at the international level to address the consequences of emerging disasters

Efforts must be made at the international level to address the consequences of emerging disasters, with the involvement of international organizations, international financial assistance, experts and volunteers. This was stated by the Chairman of the Accounting Chamber of Ukraine Valeriy Patskan at the opening of the VI meeting of the EUROSAI Working Group on the Audit of Funds Allocated to Disasters and Catastrophes. Given the COVID-19 pandemic, the meeting with participation of 14 countries was held online.

“The whole world lives in conditions of quarantine caused by the coronavirus pandemic, which in some extent affected every family and endangered the entire world economy, the decline of which is inevitable in the nearest future”, Valeriy Patskan said. “In April 2020, the experts of JPMorgan Chase estimated that in two years, the world economy’s losses due to the COVID-19 could reach $ 5.5 trillion”.

According to experts of the International Monetary Fund, the Chairman of the Accounting Chamber added, the COVID-19 pandemic would cost the world almost $ 30 trillion in GDP losses.

“Thus, to address and eliminate the consequences of emerging disasters, efforts are needed not even at the level of one or several countries, but at the whole international level, with the involvement of international organizations, international experts, international financial assistance and international volunteer efforts”, − Valeriy Patskan said. “All this points to the need of bringing the activities of our Working Group to a qualitatively new level”.

He stressed the need to intensify the work of the EUROSAI Group, in particular: to expand cooperation with non-governmental organizations and experts; increase the publicity of work; actively promote the results; consider more close collaboration with other groups within EUROSAI and INTOSAI.

The Chairman of the Accounting Chamber also noted that conducting national and international audits on disaster risk reduction, as well as developing common recommendations for best practice, should receive additional impetus in the activities of SAIs and EUROSAI working groups.

“This is the main mission of the EUROSAI Working Group on the Audit of Funds Allocated to Disasters and Catastrophes. To this end, the Accounting Chamber has prepared a Strategic Development Plan for the next three years, which is to be approved today. And I am sure that the members of the Working Group will support me on the need to extend the mandate of the group until 2024”, Valeriy Patskan summed up.

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The EUROSAI Working Group on the Audit of Funds Allocated to Disasters and Catastrophes was established in 2014 in accordance with the resolution of the IX EUROSAI Congress. Since its establishment the Working Group is chaired by the Accounting Chamber of Ukraine.