During the first week of May, the regional "Strengthening Auditing and Reporting in the Eastern Partnership" program hosted several knowledge and capacity events aimed at strengthening accounting and auditing profession in Georgia. Joining forces with the Service for Accounting, Reporting and Auditing Supervision (SARAS) and IFRS Foundation, the World Bank’s CFRR delivered two roundtables dedicated to the accounting education and professional development, as well as IFRS Workshop.
The events are supporting the accounting and audit reform implemented by Georgia and pave the way for the increased capacity among accountants and auditors in the Georgian market and greater transparency of the business community.
STAREP is the regional program, which is supporting the European Union Eastern Partnership countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine, in establishing transparent policy environment and effective institutional frameworks for corporate reporting. The Program has been implemented since 2013, and is completing in December 2018.
Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Roundtable
On May 2, 2018, the CPD Roundtable convened over 20 representatives of the leading audit companies and professional accountancy organizations (PAOs) of Georgia. Participants discussed the need in establishing a clear CPD path for the existing and future accountants, outlining the main challenges, including the need in training needs analysis, organizational details, training of trainers, pricing policy and regional coverage. All parties agreed to elaborate a joint action plan and find cooperation venues to improve the quality of accounting and auditing CPD in Georgia. International network firms committed their support to this important goal via sharing their CPD programs and materials with the PAOs and providing their skilled trainers to future CPD events.
National Initiatives for Strengthening Accounting Education
The roundtable for the National initiatives for improving accounting education and strengthening professional accounting organizations in Georgia convened over 30 representatives of the leading universities, PAOs, SARAS and accounting profession on May 4, 2018. This established community of practice has previously developed a detailed Country Action Plan and practical next steps to modernize accounting and auditing education in Georgia at university and professional levels.
This meeting focused on the next steps in accounting education reform for Georgia, and specifically on developing learning materials for universities, which are scarce. The community agreed to establish working groups to analyze the available Georgian language text books used by the universities to teach accounting and auditing, and recommend either development of modern local textbooks, or selection and translation of foreign language textbooks. Three working groups were created and will begin the analysis in each of the three disciplines: Financial Accounting, International Auditing Standards, and Management Accounting.
IFRS Workshop for the Accounting Profession
On May 7, 2018, the World Bank’s CFRR joined forces with the IFRS Foundation and SARAS to meet with the Georgian accounting community and present them the hot topics of the of IFRS and IFRS for SMEs. The workshop was held at the Ministry of Finance of Georgia, and convened more than 200 accountants, trainers and auditors working with the IFRS standards. Darrel Scott, Member of the International Accounting Standards board (IASB), presented an overview, scope, concepts and hot topics concerning the International Accounting Standards (IFRS, IFRS for SMEs) to the audience. Participants learned about the important developments in the International Accounting Standards, as well as asked questions and received answers about the specific issues in an open Q&A session.
Disclaimer: This webpage was created and maintained with the financial support of the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of CFRR and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.