An essential approach to addressing national challenges in the Pacific is through closer regional cooperation, the head of the Asian Development Bank'’s Pacific Department, Philip Erquiaga, said yesterday.

In his keynote address at the 11th Congress of the South Pacific Association of Supreme Audit Institutions (SPASAI), he said that public auditing in the Pacific region overall has advanced substantially in the past decade, but these gains have been made in the face of intimidating challenges.

Mr Erquiaga said sustaining advancements in public auditing in small Pacific countries is one such challenge. Trying to keep the region's best and brightest public auditors in the Pacific is also increasingly becoming more difficult due to the wealth of opportunities being offered in Australia, New Zealand and the United States. Moreover, public audit offices need additional capacity to deal with more complex public sector reporting and to meet higher public expectations. Today's Pacific public auditors are not just checking payment details, but are increasingly undertaking performance and environmental auditing.

"Pacific regionalism is one approach to addressing these national challenges. Working together provides economies of scale and opportunities to share capacity," Mr Erquiaga told the Congress.

"Regionalism in no way replaces national policies and programs, it aims to support and supplement them."

ADB has identified some key lessons which aim to strengthen the development impact of regional activities. One of these is ADB's support of the design and implementation of the Pacific Regional Audit Initiative. Its design was developed through an extensive 18 month consultative process under the guidance of SPASAI with support from ADB and the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) under the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat's coordination.

"The Pacific Regional Audit Initiative will work with Pacific countries to build and sustain public auditing capacity," says ADB's Barry Reid. "It aims to provide training for public auditing professionals, and provide technical advice to national audit offices."

The Initiative will also support national audit offices working together to conduct performance audits, and boost transparency by providing a collective regional umbrella for advocating enhanced Pacific accountability mechanisms. ADB, 18/04/08.