Professional accounting organizations (PAOs)

The Sustainable Education component of the REPARIS for SMEs program, which aims to train the accounting profession to support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), continued its implementation this year by preparing and delivering a five-day training of trainers’ workshop during the week of December 9th, 2024, at the premises of the World Bank in Vienna, Austria. The training was delivered with the assistance of professionals from PwC, who developed the training materials under the guidance of the World Bank Team.

The event convened stakeholders of accountancy education from STAREP and PULSAR beneficiary countries from European Union (EU) Eastern Partnership and Western Balkan countries.

The Round table, organized by Governance GP Global Unit, is an activity of the FASE program whose objective is to develop more accounting technicians in Africa to support growth, accountability, and efficiency in the public and private sectors in Africa. The Program (2018-2025), funded by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Finance, includes two streams of activities.

Building on the success of the previous event on May 19, this SIT continued the discussion by exploring additional international models for Public Sector Accounting education and reviewing the local and regional approaches to promoting accounting education in the Public Sector from PAOs prospective. During the session, members had the opportunity to learn from one country outside of the region (Zambia) as well as two PULSAR countries (Albania and Georgia) and compare these experiences to other relevant models in the CoP member countries.

Representatives of over 20 Professional Accountancy Organizations (PAOs) met in Vienna on 28 April 2016 with experts from the World Bank, the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC), and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), to discuss the contribution of PAOs to economic growth.

This SIT aimed at exploring different international models for Public Sector Accounting education and reviewing the local and regional approaches to promoting accounting education in the Public Sector from PAOs prospective. During the session, members had the opportunity to learn from a number of countries outside of the region (specifically South Africa, Philippines and Vietnam) and compare them to relevant models in the CoP member countries.

Professional accounting/auditing associations (PAOs) from Moldova met on March 10 to discuss how to improve cooperation and build a strong and sustainable accounting and auditing profession.

On June 29th the Round Table discussion took place in the World Bank country office in Kyiv, which brought together key stakeholders to share views and consider options for strengthening the role and contribution that PAOs play in Ukraine economy. The issues of consolidation of the profession were also discussed.

On March 4, within the frames of the European Union-World Bank joint Financial Inclusion and Accountability Project, the World Bank held an online meeting on - “Future of SMPs: Digital Transformation”.

Representatives of 20 regional and national Professional Accountancy Organizations (PAOs) met in Vienna on 31 May 2017, with experts from the World Bank’s Centre for Financial Reporting Reform (CFRR) and the International Federation of Accountants®(IFAC®), to discuss ways to address the challenges facing small and medium-sized practices (SMPs) and small and medium-sized entities (SMEs) as well as the opportunities available to them.