Accountability for Disaster Assistance: Learning From the Past to Plan for the Future

This speech was given by the Comptroller General before the Austrian Court of Audit in Vienna, Austria, on June 20, 2006. Natural disasters fall into a category of important issues that know no geographic or political boundaries. And this brings me to my main theme this morning. To successfully tackle these challenges, partnering among nations on both a bilateral and a multilateral basis will be essential. We must join forces with each other and apply our collective knowledge, experience, and expertise to solve shared problems. And, at its heart, that's what this conference is all about. As accountability professionals, our job is to help ensure that aid money is well spent, intended recipients are well served, and funds are protected from waste, fraud, and abuse. Tsunami relief and reconstruction is an important test case for our organizations. By earning the confidence of the international community, we will have a constructive and continuing role to play. This morning, I'd like to talk about the progress we've made in ensuring accountability over disaster relief funds. In particular, I'm going to discuss recent GAO reports on tsunami relief to South Asia and hurricane relief to the U.S. Gulf Coast. Then I'm going to discuss the need for governments and supreme audit institutions (SAI) to join together, share their expertise, and develop new approaches and solutions to complex issues. Finally, I'm going to talk about additional steps we can take to assure the world that donations are being well spent.