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Office of the Inspector General
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations - helping to build a world without hunger
  
  

Activities


The Office of the Inspector General conducts both internal audits and investigations to provide comprehensive internal oversight at all levels of the organization.

  • Internal audit serves as an ongoing tool for improving FAO's operations. Auditors follow a scheduled biennial audit plan, determined according to accepted methods of risk assessment, combined with cumulative institutional knowledge and analysis of policy directions from the Governing Bodies, and they also respond to audit needs identified during the course of scheduled audits. In addition, auditors respond to emerging needs such as requests from senior management for reviews of specific activities.


  • Investigations are conducted pursuant to the receipt of specific complaints of wrongdoing, or the identification of indicators of potential wrongdoing during the course of an audit or other activity. The investigations unit is responsible for reviewing allegations of misconduct, fraud and other improper activities. The investigative findings are then submitted to the appropriate unit for decision. The investigations unit also recommends actions to prevent future violations of FAO policies prohibiting fraud and misconduct with respect to staff members or third parties.


  • General Information The Office has been sharing its Annual Activity Report with the FAO Finance Committee since 1996. In addition to the Annual Activity Report, the Office publishes some 65 reports annually on its audits and investigations as well as hundreds of memoranda and notes providing comments and advice to management on a variety of issues.

Ongoing internal audits and investigations provide the opportunity for the Inspector General to recommend means of improving the efficiency and economy of operations and the effective use of the Organization's resources. Internal audits and investigations conducted worldwide have covered aspects of financial management, budgeting, procurement and the establishment or enhancement of policies and guidelines in human resources, IT and security areas in order to improve accountability and strengthen and enforce internal controls, as well as a number of other areas.

Implementation of recommendations is followed up every six months and reported to the Director General and Audit Committee.

All work undertaken by the Office is complementary to that of the External Auditor and the Evaluation Service (PBEE). In addition, the work is conducted in collaboration with the External Auditor, the Legal Office and PBEE, as appropriate.