Introduction

Continuous learning is the trademark of human civilisation. What are some of the issues that have kept you busy, engaged and staying up late this year? Do you believe organisations have invested enough to respond to the evolving human, business, and technological challenges?

The African Professionalisation Initiative – API – held its first Continuing Professional Development (CPD) event jointly with the Chartered Governance and Accountancy Institute of Zimbabwe (CGIAZ) and the Public Accountants and Auditors Board (PAAB) Zimbabwe.

The event, titled, Trends and opportunities impacting professional accountants in 2023 and beyond was designed around an appropriate theme: Prosperity through greater accountability and transparency in the public sector. This inaugural API event had 1086 registrants and 436 participants in the live session.

Please tell us how API and its in-country partners (PAOs and other learning institutions) can make lifelong learning work better for you and how you would like us to proceed.

Topics Covered

The program focused on three major thematic areas preceded by and introductory scene setting presentation about the state of opportunities, emphasis on value creation and the role professional accountants and auditors can play to make a difference. These included:

1. The power of Partnerships in advancing accountability and transparency in the public sector
2. Value Creation (Performance) and Audits of performance – Role of performance audits in sustaining value creation
3. Public Sector Accounting and Reporting

Keynote Speakers

The presenters at the event came from diverse cultural and geographical backgrounds. These included: the API Board Chair, Marcel Mukeshimana; the Auditor General of the Gambia, Modou Ceesay; The Chairman of the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board (IPSASB), Ian Carruthers; The Africa Accounting and Finance Association (AAFA) Board Members, Philippe Lassou; The IFAC Principal, Darlene Nzorubara; The Secretary of PAAB Zimbabwe, Admire Ndurunduru; the Eastern and Southern Africa Association of Accountants Generals (ESAAG) Technical Director, Nokwanda Mngeni; The AFROSAI-E Senior Executive, Josephine Mukomba; The Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Rwanda (ICPAR) CEO, Amin Miramago; The CEO of the Southern Africa Institute of Government Auditors (SAIGA), Russel Morena; Pan African Federation of Accountants (PAFA) senior manager, Reuben Orwaru; and Prof. Rashied Small, API Academic Advisory Committee Chairman.

Key Lessons and Recommendations

Below are the key lessons/ high level take aways from the CPD event for onward action as may be appropriate.

1. Strengthen partnerships and collaboration to create value sustainably
2. Set up PAOs where there are none to advance the accountability and transparency goals
3. IFAC and partners driving strengthening of PFM systems and practices in Africa to keep up the good work
4. There’s need to advance language translation of API – To French (on going) and Portuguese
5. Mandate in law the conducting of performance audits. Meanwhile use best endeavours and good practice
6. Make performance and other reports simpler and shorter to make them easy to understand and use
7. Performance audits should expand focus on Economy, Efficiency and Effectiveness focus to include Environmental aspect(s)
8. Governments to consider introducing performance measurement metrics to optimize productivity
9. Invest in competency-based education and re-training/ re-skilling
10. Strengthen and activate engagement between educators and employers for skills relevance
11. Foster innovation and entrepreneurship in education and at work to address unemployment
12. Develop policies and mechanisms to support workers impacted by unemployment.
13. Create regulatory frameworks to ensure that technological disruptions are managed in a way that is fair and equitable
14. Foster collaboration and partnerships between professionals; governments; businesses – to develop new value adding solutions

Upcoming Event – PFM Conference – 27 September 2023

The API Public Sector Finance Management Conference will be held on the 27^th of September 2023. We believe that commitment to continuous learning and improvement, especially in a multi-cultural setting such as the API events will create an ideal opportunity to advance partnership for progress. The event will be hosted jointly with CGIAZ and PAAB Zimbabwe.

You Can Register Here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcqdOyupzksH9X1DQ6nFhHIfHz6LzIARB5I

About The API

Our Vision

An African public sector capacitated with competent, ethical and influential professionals who support accountability, transparency and good financial governance

Our Mission

To grow the capacity of accountancy professionals in the African public sector for enhanced service delivery.

The API Organisation and Learning Programmes

The API is an independent non-profit organisation whose primary objective is to strengthen the capacity and knowledge base of accounting and auditing professionals in the African public sector to enhance accounting and auditing service delivery to the citizens of Africa.

The API Learning Programme aims to achieve the above institutional goal a partnership between the accountancy profession (represented by the Pan African Federation of Accountants (“PAFA”)), accountants general or their equivalent (currently being represented by the East and Southern African Association of Accountants (“ESAAG” – and in the near future the Association of African Accountants General – “AAAG”)), and supreme audit institutions or courts of auditors (represented by the English (“AFROSAI-E”) and French (“CREFIAF”) language sub-groups of the African Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (“AFROSAI”)).

Contact the API team for more details : info@professionalisation.africa | www.professionalisation.africa