Environment protection requires collaboration across boundaries: CAG

Laying emphasis on building on the Bangkok declaration, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India has said that he looks forward to work together on developing a strategy to equip the members in the focus areas of SDGs, environment, emerging technologies and natural resource accounting.

The Supreme Audit Institution of India (SAI) looks forward to the focus areas to support and supplement national strategies and plans for sustainable development.

The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), G.C. Murmu, was addressing the 57th governing board meeting of the Assembly of Asian Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (ASOSAI) here on Wednesday.

Stating that protection of environment requires collaboration across boundaries, Murmu assured that SAI will strive to make ASOSAI a model organisation and encourage its members to act in a spirit of global partnership.

Murmu said that SAIs would appreciate that the economic slowdown triggered by the pandemic has forced the governments to do more with limited resources through innovations in its processes to achieve the desired outcomes.

SAIs can become valued partners in objectively evaluating resources and economy, efficiency, and effectiveness of public expenditure, thereby providing insight for optimisation of public finance management, the CAG said.

Murmu informed the members that the Human Development Report of 1990 put people in the forefront of the development debate by rightly pointing out that “people are the real wealth of nations”, a release said.

He added that the Human Development Index provides an alternative single number by capturing progress in the dimensions of education, health and standard of living.

He sounded hopeful that this index may be useful for SAIs to assess the progress in the implementation of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) till such time data relating to targets and indicators gets stabilised.

Murmu acknowledged the fact that as the world moves together into the ‘Decade of Action’, countries are accelerating the design and implementation of innovative solutions for achieving the SDGs.