The International Coordinated Audit on the Prevention and Consequences Elimination of Floods was carried out in the framework of the EUROSAI Working Group on the Audit of Funds Allocated to Disasters and Catastrophes. The SAIs of of Belarus, Georgia, Poland, Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine (audit coordinator) and the European Court of Auditors participated in the audit.
The purpose of the audit was the assessment of the establishment by national bodies of the response mechanisms in case of floods and the timeliness of such actions, the effectiveness of the flood risk management system and the reduction of the harmful impact of floods, the economy and legality of using the allocated budget funds for the above purpose.
Participants of the international coordinated audit unanimously state that in the process of managing natural disasters, the amount of money invested in reducing the risk of a catastrophe is the most cost-effective, as proper prevention and preparedness measures can significantly reduce the adverse impact of natural disasters.
The international coordinated audit highlighted, that in the countries of participating SAIs and at EU level (according to the findings of the European Court of Auditors):
✓ legal and organizational frameworks for flood protection planning and management have been established, however there is a need to further finalizing the programming documents, specification of the developed policies, strengthening coordination between the competent authorities, as well as strict adherence to the requirements of European and national legislation;
✓ a system of flood risk management based on the basin principle was introduced and regional bodies of river basin management were established, but integrated flood risk management was not provided in national and cross-border river basins;
✓ measures aimed at flood protection have not been implemented effectively, in particular due to late decision-making;
✓ approaches to financing flood measures are imperfect, do not provide the need for funds as most of SAIs-participants noted, and flood risk management plans sent to the European Commission do not always identify the source of funds, as ECA reported;
✓ there is a need to improve forecasting of future flood risk.
The study of this problem resulted in elaboration of key recommendations to the governments and responsible bodies of the countries.
Participants of the international coordinated audit share the provisions of the INTOSAI Guidance GUID 9000 “Cooperative Audits between SAIs” and identify a decisive factor in cooperative efforts to find a common solution for a specific audit topic, as their countries have similar interests in sphere of flood prevention and its consequences elimination.
Source: EUROSAI Database of Audits - https://www.eurosai.org/en/databases/audits/Joint-Report-on-the-Results-of-the-International-Coordinated-Audit-on-the-Prevention-and-Consequences-Elimination-of-Floods/