ICAEW has been working globally since 2007 to build accounting capacity and standards by partnering with local accounting bodies. Their approach involves conducting strategic reviews, reforming qualifications, and improving training and oversight. A successful early project in Bangladesh helped reform qualifications and attitudes to grow the profession from 1000 to over 140,000 accountants. ICAEW has continued this work across Africa and Asia to strengthen professions and support economic development.

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capacitY BUILDING
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Global prosperity relies on a robust
accountancy profession in every
country, which is why, reports
Nick Martindale, ICAEW has been
working across the globe to support the
development of standards and training
painting
a Global
picture
A
strong international accounting base is essential to
both global economic prosperity and the
development of individual countries and regions.
This is something that has been actively encouraged
and financed by many developmental charities and
organisations – including the World Bank, the Asian
Development Bank, the UK Department for International
Development and the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office –
over the past two decades.
“After the East Asian financial crisis [in 1997] we realised that
accountancy development is an integral part of economic
development, because if the accountancy sector remains weak
then transparency, accountability and governance are seriously
affected,” says Zubaidur Rahman, adviser, core operations
services, at the World Bank. “Many companies showed a bright
future with their financial statements and within six months
they went down the drain. That inspired institutions like ours to
start thinking about improving accounting and auditing systems.”
There have essentially been three parts to this strategy, says
Rahman: encouraging the adoption of standards such as
illustration:MikeLemanski

2. capacitY BUILDING
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International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and
International Standards on Auditing (ISA); developing or
strengthening national accountancy bodies; and implementing
an independent regulator and oversight body that would provide
legal backing for the enforcement of standards.
The strategy to bolster national accountancy bodies has
essentially been based around “twinning”; linking the
developing organisation with a more established professional
accountancy organisation, to help put in place the framework
and resources needed to assist its development. ICAEW has been
at the forefront of this work, working on over 20 capacity-
building projects since 2007, in particular through helping
to develop professional qualifications and strong and sustainable
national accountancy bodies.
Mark Campbell is head of international capacity building
at ICAEW, and joined the organisation back in 2007 to help
spearhead its work in this area. The first step, he says, is usually
to undertake a strategic review of the current situation around
accounting standards, regulation and any professional body and
developing a plan of action, before focusing in on three main
areas. These include tackling issues around audit quality
monitoring, often involving making changes to the existing
regulatory framework; reforming or developing a national
professional qualification; and
taking a broader look at the
quality and quantity of
accountants, and the standard
of training they receive, and
addressing this where possible,
sometimes through “train the
trainer” courses.
ICAEW was first involved in
a project in Bangladesh that
started in 2007. It worked with
the Institute of Chartered
Accountants of Bangladesh
to bring its professional
qualification in line with
international benchmarks,
as well as helping to change
attitudes around the
development of the auditing
industry. “Despite a rapidly
growing business sector and a
population of 140,000, the institute had just 1000 accountants,”
says Campbell.
“This was because the profession wanted to maintain a
monopoly over audit. They didn’t understand that while that
might be good for members it’s not so good for the profession
or the institute.” Other issues also had to be tackled, including
the practice of making students take and pass all of their exams
in a single day.
The project finished in 2009 – most last around two years – by
which time the institute itself was in a better position to further
develop the profession and training on its own initiative. “That
typifies our overall philosophy in this, which is that by creating
a strong profession that is guided by a strong professional
accountancy organisation, you stand a much greater chance
of making the differences that are essential in creating
transparency and business confidence,” he says.
Since then, ICAEW has been selected by the World Bank,
through competitive bids, to manage the delivery of projects all
over the world, but with a particular focus on Africa and Asia. In
Africa, it has been involved in projects in Botswana, Ghana (see
box), Tanzania and Malawi, where it will launch a professional
qualification early in 2014, as well as two projects in Nigeria.
“Not all of our work is with counterpart bodies; we’re
helping the Securities & Exchange Commission Nigeria
transition to IFRS,” says Campbell. “For the 60 or so professional
accountants it’s very much at the more advanced and applied
levels, but we’re also helping to train 350 staff in lower-level
basic accounting.”
Stephen Lamdin is a senior consultant for capacity building
at ICAEW, having previously developed a business school in
Botswana as a joint venture between the Botswanan government
and diamond organisation De Beers. With ICAEW, he’s been
involved in many projects in Africa, including developing the
first professional accountancy qualification in both Botswana
and Malawi, as well as overhauling those in Ghana, Nigeria and
Tanzania. “They were different projects but there was an
overriding similarity in that they worked on the fundamental
principle that in order to get a growing economy you needed to
have strong governance and transparency, and you really only
get that with a strong accountancy profession,” he says. There
are other parts of Africa he believes will be ripe for such
programmes in the future, including Zambia and Zimbabwe in
sub-Saharan Africa, South Sudan and Ethiopia.
Asia has also been a focal point for activity for ICAEW’s work,
spanning a number of countries across the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) network. “You can pretty
much draw a direct correlation between the size of the economy
and the development of the profession,” says Mark Billington,
ICAEW regional director for South-East Asia, who has helped to
oversee the organisation’s activities in the area.
There are a number of specific challenges in Asia, says
Billington. In the relatively advanced economy of Singapore, the
biggest challenge has been around changing the perception that
education alone is enough to equip people to work as auditors.
“We had to implement a set of examinations based around
professional rather than academic qualifications in an
environment where education standards are high and the focus
of the government is on that,” he says.
“You can contrast that with Myanmar where the profession
has arguably stood still for the last 40 years because of the
political landscape,” he adds. “There we’re looking at how we
give the institute itself a strategic plan and the wherewithal to
plot a course that will allow it to progress in the way that
Myanmar itself wants. It’s a very different challenge.”
Another focus has been at least slightly closer to home,
helping to strengthen countries in eastern Europe, in particular
those with aspirations of joining the European Union. In Serbia,
for instance, ICAEW has worked with the Ministry of Finance to
strengthen the accounting and auditing professions within the
public and private sectors, while in Croatia it has been assisting
the Croatian Chamber of Auditors to build an overseeing body,
including mentoring and training audit reviewers, with the aim
of enabling the chamber to align itself to the European Union
Statutory Audit Directive.
With the experiences gained in working in capacity-building
projects over the past seven years, the Institute is well
positioned to help in other parts of the world, and with that to
extend its own influence as a professional accounting
organisation as well as furthering the development of
accounting standards on which the global economy depends.
Campbell is understandably proud of the work his team has
undertaken since coming on board, but there is one project that
stands out for him. “I would single out the qualification in
Botswana as a real catalyst for creating a strong professional
accounting organisation,” he says. “We’ve really improved the
sense of confidence and the influence of the national body, and
it is now a real part of the fabric of the Botswanan accountancy
profession. That has been a real showcase for us.”
“Issues had to be tackled,
including the practice of
making students take and pass
all of their exams in one day” Between April 2011 and January
2013, ICAEW worked closely with
the Institute of Chartered
Accountants in Ghana (ICAG), with
a major focus on improving both the
quality of auditing in general and
the monitoring of the work of audit
companies by the professional
accountancy organisation.
As part of this, key personnel
from ICAG were trained in audit
regulation and quality monitoring,
and ICAEW accompanied its
managers in their first five
“assessment visits”, which were
initially designed simply to assess
the quality of the audit businesses
that had signed up as members.
“We looked at their legal
structure, how they accrued and
accepted clients and other issues,”
says Charles Egan, consultant head
reviewer in ICAG’s committee
monitoring department. “Around
95% were not satisfactory – that
was virtually all of them apart from
the Big Four firms.”
ICAEW was able to arrange free
access to the Private Company
Auditing System – an online
package designed to help firms
comply with International Standards
on Auditing (ISA) – for these
organisations and provided support
around how to use this, as well as
guidance on how member
businesses could undertake ISQC 1
training to improve their own
processes.
Today, ICAG has around 200 audit
firm members and a full-time
monitoring team, which is now
moving from initial assessments to
full audit monitoring of its members’
activities. “This has brought the
audit firms into a much tighter
form of regulation at a very timely
point in Ghana’s economic
development,” says Mark Campbell,
head of international capacity
building at ICAEW.
success in ghana
Accountancy development is
an essential part of economic
development, impacting upon
transparency, accountability
and governance
ICAEW started working to
build international capacity in
2007, and has since gone on to
work alongside the World
Bank in Africa and Asia
The core philosophy is to
create a strong profession
guided by a strong
professional organisation
At a
glance