The State Audit Office of Georgia (SAO), together with the European Court of Auditors (ECA), the Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) of Poland, Serbia, Ukraine, Belarus and Turkey, has conducted an international joint performance audit on flood emergency management (prevention and preparedness).
This international coordinated audit has been carried out by the SAO as part of the activities of the EUROSAI Working Group on Audit of Funds Allocated to Disasters and Catastrophes.
The selection of the audit topic was driven by the growing threat of disasters, including floods, around the world. According to the latest UN Disaster Risk Reduction Report, 76 million people were affected by floods in 1997–2017. Along with human victims, floods cause large material damage.
Audit teams in their respective countries have examined the sufficiency and productivity of flood risk prevention and planned measures, as well as the extent to which natural disaster preparedness measures provide timely response to predicted floods and mitigate their adverse effects.
SAIs identified a number of important findings, including several issues common to all participating countries, namely:
- The legal and organizational frameworks for planning and managing flood prevention measures are in place in countries, but require significant improvement. Strategic and action plans are not detailed and accurate enough;
- There is no effective coordination / communication between different entities (agencies) of the system. As a result, preventive and preparedness measures are delayed, which increases the likelihood of flooding;
- The requirements of European and national legislation are not strictly observed;
- Flood prevention and preparedness funding systems are not part of a sustainable, long-term and integrated action framework. Events are held within the budgets of various agencies and in some cases are not related to pre-defined long-term activities;
- The use of a modern flood early warning system for flood prediction and precautions of citizens remains a challenge in countries participating in the audit, including Georgia.
The coordinated audit provided recommendations to assist the governments of Georgia, Poland, Serbia, Ukraine, Belarus and Turkey in effectively managing preventive and preparedness measures.
Over the past three years, the SAO has conducted three international audits under the EUROSAI and Eastern Partnership projects, including Air Quality Performance Audit covering 15 partner countries and Tuberculosis Management Performance Audit with the participation of Georgia, Azerbaijan and Ukraine, coordinated by the SAO.
