IFAC, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the Global Public Policy Committee (GPPC), with the support of the Inter-American Accounting Association, recently convened the sixth annual Contabilidad y Responsabilidad para el Crecimiento Económico Regional (Conference for Accounting and Accountability for Regional Economic Growth, or CReCER) in Managua, Nicaragua, hosted and organized by the Colegio de Contadores Públicos de Nicaragua (CCPN).
CReCER is comprised of a number of plenary and panel sessions, allowing leaders and representatives to exchange ideas, hear about country and sector case studies and experiences, and lay the groundwork for continued growth and development. The three-day conference featured leaders in the accountancy profession and senior global representatives with responsibilities for regulation and public financial management. Attendance was high—more than 600 attendees, 80 speakers, and participation by representatives from more than 30 countries from the region and beyond.
At the heart of CReCER is fostering economic development in the Latin America and Caribbean region through high-quality financial reporting and public sector financial management. CReCER 2012 focused on:
- lessons learned from country adoption of international standards, including the International Standards on Auditing, International Financial Reporting Standards for Small- and Medium-Sized Entities (IFRS for SMEs), and International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSASs), and the role of supreme audit institutions;
- ways to further support the role of small- and medium-sized practices and the needs of SMEs, and the role and strategic objective of professional accountancy organizations (PAOs) and the Grupo Latino-Americano d Normatizadores Contábeis (Group of Latin American Accounting Standard Setters, or GLASS).