Members of Council, fellow professional accountants, distinguished guests, friends. Two years ago, in Paris, you paid me the compliment of electing me as your President and of entrusting me with the opportunity to serve you, the leaders of our great profession of accountancy around the world. At that time our discussion focused on choices: together we were faced with the challenge of choosing to commit to rethink our roles, reshape our organization and recommit to our fundamental responsibilities to protect the public interest. We were challenged to have the determination to succeed. We were challenged to up our game and to meet the future with confidence. Looking back over the last two years, I believe that, together, we are meeting those challenges and that both the public interest and our self-respect as a great profession have been well served.
We agreed to focus on the many positive aspects of our worldwide profession, summarizing our vision as “generating growth and stability worldwide.” Together, we have focused on delivering that vision.
We have invested far, far more in supporting professional accountants in business and in supporting professional accountants in small and medium practices. The number, quality and relevance of the publications of our Professional Accountants in Business Committee and of our SMP Committee have been excellent and we should be proud of them. Together, we have delivered. For example:
- The SMP Committee have commissioned a guide to the use of ISAs in the audits of small and medium-sized enterprises.
- We are just beginning a project on responsibilities in the financial reporting supply chain. This is to be led by Norman Lyle, whose many achievements include being a former president of CIMA and a former Chief Financial Officer of Jardine Matheson.
These are intensely practical projects which will produce great benefit for the communities which we serve.
Our relationships with the global regulatory and institutional community have grown ever closer and more productive. The Public Interest Oversight Board (PIOB) was launched in February 2005. This very high quality group, strongly led by Professor Stavros Thomadakis, has made a real and positive difference to the quality of our standard setting. All concerned at IFAC have cooperated strongly with the PIOB, and this and other demonstrations of our commitment to the public interest have greatly increased the respect in which both IFAC and our profession are held. As an example, may I quote Charles Niemeier, a member of the US Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, who at a recent conference said:
“I am proud to say that the accounting profession has courageously looked at its involvement with these problems [Enron and similar scandals] and has accepted the need to change. It has faced its shortcomings and is learning from them. And with that acceptance, the accounting profession has moved beyond the problems of the past and entered a new phase where accountants will no longer accept being minimum compliance experts. Instead, accountants are becoming the promoters of best practices…”
As a further example, the European Commission has stated that it does not have governance concerns with the IAASB and the PIOB, and European Commissioner Charlie McCreevy has said:
“I am very happy that recently we have been able to sketch out an international understanding on the governance of the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board and the Public Interest Oversight Board. This will allow us to move closer to the adoption of ISAs and I also think that the two EU observers should become full members of the Public Interest Oversight Board.”
Underpinning this confidence has been our commitment, together, to the IFAC values of integrity, transparency and expertise.
Achieving public confidence would not have been possible without the commitment of our standard-setting boards: the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board, the International Accounting Education Standards Board, and the International Ethics Standard Board for Accountants. They have opened their meetings to the public; they have made all of their papers available to the public, who can even listen to recordings of their meetings on their website, and cooperate fully with independently chaired Consultative Advisory Groups. They have worked and are working on agendas which are relevant to supporting the public interest and to increasing the standing of our profession.
Public confidence also would not have been possible without the commitment of Helene Kennedy and her team to our communications program. This excellent work has underpinned our outreach to IFAC’s stakeholders.
Whilst not under the aegis of the PIOB, the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board has also been doing an excellent job. External recognition of this is evident by the increasing adoption of (IPSASs). For example, last June, the United Nations General Assembly approved a package of financial management reforms that called for all UN agencies to use IPSASs for their financial statements.
And we have made real commitments to the strengthening of our profession, especially in developing and emerging economies. A strong accountancy profession is key to a strong financial infrastructure and to the creation of an investment climate of trust. In turn, these factors enable countries to obtain the investment necessary to achieve proper standards for the provision of health, education, clean water, energy and food. In other words, they, we are essential to the fight against poverty.
Through our Member Body Compliance Program, you have provided us, in an unprecedented show of support, with information about the regulatory and standard-setting frameworks of your member bodies and about your compliance with the IFAC Statements of Membership Obligations. Thereby you have helped us to focus our development work and you have demonstrated beyond all doubt your willingness to be accountable for your actions to meet high standards, to deliver quality and to protect the public interest. This work has been facilitated by our hardworking Compliance Advisory Panel.
Our Developing Nations Committee, where resources have been very significantly increased over the last two years, has been doing great work. Newly developed accountancy bodies are emerging and accountancy institutes in many developing nations are gaining momentum and influence as they institute programs, stimulated by our Developing Nations Committee, which foster a high quality profession. I am particularly proud that, in September, together with the African Development Bank and the World Bank, IFAC sponsored a learning workshop for government and private sector leaders and members of the accountancy profession to learn how we can best meet the needs of Africa in its fight against some of the worst poverty in the world. Real action is now taking place as a result of agreements made at that workshop and both Africa and the world will benefit.
The public has also benefited from our close cooperation with the Forum of Firms, whose members provide us with excellent people and financial support and are also driving harder and harder to achieve real quality of client service. Their commitment to our code of ethics, to ISAs and to ISQC 1 is a real benefit to the creation of even fairer and better informed capital markets throughout our world.
None of our work, however, would be possible without the support of you: our member bodies and regional organizations. Thank you all for your political support, for your financial support and for your support by providing such high quality people to work on IFAC boards and committees. To help you in this, we have significantly improved the processes of and transparency of our Nominating Committee, and you have responded by providing us with ever more and an ever higher quality of volunteers.
I would like to offer my sincere thanks to each and every member of our Board, our Boards, our Committees, and to our Technical Advisers; and to every member of our highly professional and hard working staff. I would like to thank Ian Ball for his great professionalism and his great personal support and Fermín del Valle, our Deputy President, for his support in the past and for his leadership in the future.
Fellow professional accountants, friends, together we have faced many challenges; together we have met them; together we have upped our game; and together we will meet the future with confidence.
Thank you so very much for your confidence, thank you for your friendship and support, thank you for the opportunity to serve you.