Urgent: CSDevNet calls for Auditing Services FY 2023

Climate and Sustainable Development Network (CSDevNet) urgently seeks the services of an Auditing firm.

1. TERMS OF REFERENCE FOR PROJECT AUDIT FY 2023:

ToR External Project Auditor for Climate and Sustainable Development Network (CSDevNet), An Implementing Partner (IP)  for African Activist for Climate Justice Project , a sub-grantee of PACJA, Consortium member.

1        Background information

1.1      The African Activists for Climate Justice AACJ consortium

The consortium aims at building a strong African movement, led by the groups most affected by climate change i.e. women, African youth, local and indigenous communities to help to ensure that people who are most impacted and have most at stake are at the frontline of designing, developing, implementing and monitoring climate action; apply a human rights lens to climate change; increase transparency and accountability in developing and implementing climate policies, break silos between movements and CSOs, connect struggles and increase solidarity.

The AACJ project will work with partner platforms; advocacy and research partners; organizations experienced in local-level resilience building; complementary organizations we work with regionally and globally; Governments and Government agencies. AACJ will also work with allies and broker relationships with those who can reach, influence, and mobilize much wider constituencies for climate justice.

1.2      Project

The AACJ goal is to amplify and unite the voices in Africa demanding that women, youth, local and indigenous communities in the project countries can defend and realize their human rights and live a decent and dignified life in a healthy and sustainable environment, within the context of the climate emergency.

The strategic objective of the AACJ project is a strong and inclusive African movement that has mobilized citizens, companies, and governments to advance climate justice, specifically contributing to:

• Amplified voices of people who are disproportionately affected by the changing climate, and that offer solutions for a more sustainable future, such as women, youth, and local and indigenous communities.
• African narratives that highlight lived experiences of women, youth and local and indigenous communities impacted by climate change, and which can help change the terms of debate on climate change.
• Empowered citizens/ communities that claim and defend their social and environmental rights.
• Scoping and scaling of community- based best practice on adaptive capacities of climate frontline communities and.
• Policy and practice change that prevent adverse impacts of climate change, support communities that are already affected and enable the transition to more sustainable, and low carbon economies, while leaving no one behind.

1.3   Theory of Change

The project is based on theory of change. Visualization of the Theory of Change (TOC) is as shown below:

1.4      Project Area

The AACJ program will be implemented in eight African countries: Somalia, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Mozambique, Senegal, and South Africa, next to Pan-Africa, global level & in the Netherlands, the country of the home donor, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA). The AACJ consortium believes that building strong and inclusive movements for climate justice in these countries can be the engine for a powerful Pan-African movement for climate justice. The selection of countries was based on a combination of criteria, including climate vulnerability. The consortium aimed for a combination of countries to allow for synergies, mutual learning, peer pressure among governments and knock-on effects, while contributing to a genuine African voice at the various levels.

1.5      Consortium Partners

To contribute to an African movement for Climate Justice, the AACJ consortium has assembled partners and networks with broad constituencies and a diversity of tools, capacities, tactics, and strategies to align and strengthen existing movements, organizations and initiatives advancing the (environmental) rights of women, youth, and local communities. Each consortium partner has presence and influence across Africa, with relevant and complementary expertise and experience. The lead Consortium Partner in charge of this project is PACJA. The Consortium partners involved in this project include: PACJA as the lead party; Oxfam Novib, Natural Justice and FEMNET as Consortium partners and African Youth Commission as an Implementing Partner.

Pan Africa Climate Justice Alliance (“PACJA”) is an organization organized under the law of Kenya whose registered office is at Jamhuri Crescent, Hse J13, Kabarnet Road, Off Ngong road, Nairobi, Kenya. PACJA is the Lead Applicant in this proposal and brings together over 1000 African organizations from 48 countries. PACJA has been at the forefront of advancing climate justice in Africa for over 10 years, using evidence-based advocacy to shape and improve policies and laws on natural resource management, and supporting local communities to develop climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies.

1.6. Funding

AACJ project is fully funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, A grant for an amount of € 43,373,934 was approved for the consortium and to be led by PACJA. The grant is to be used for the implementation of the Project activities in the period 1st May 2021 to 31st December 2025, as approved by the Ministry in the Grant Decision (4000004774) approved on the 12th of May 2021, and the Financing agreement with PACJA .

The external auditor will audit PACJA Downstream partner Climate and Sustainable Development Network (CSDevNet).The total amount disbursed to the partner in year 2023 was Euro120,000.

The audited reports from the sub-granted partners will be submitted to PACJA (The Consortium Partner Incharge) . The auditor for PACJA will audit the consolidated report for the Lead Partner. PACJA has its headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, where all the project records are retained.

2        OBJECTIVE OF THE AUDIT:

The objectives of this audit are to enable the Auditor to express an opinion on whether:

• The Financial Report of the project presents fairly, in all material respects, the actual expenditure incurred and the revenue received for the Project for the period from 1st January 2023 to 31st December 2023 are in conformity with the applicable Contractual Conditions;
• The Project funds provided by the donor (s) have, in all material respects, been used in conformity with the applicable Contractual Conditions.
• The internal control system i.e., the control environment and the control procedures are adequate to ensure that:
  • Assets are safe guarded
  • Fraud is prevented and detected
  • Segregation of duties are adopted and strictly followed
  • Accounting records are complete; reliable and understandable

For item 2.3; the auditor is expected to prepare a management letter to highlight weakness.

2.4. The auditor must establish that the transactions as accounted for in the financial statement comply with the framework mentioned under audit protocol . The audit must be carried out in accordance with the requirements laid down in this Audit Protocol and with the relevant Dutch auditing standards or International Audit Standards (ISA).

3        SCOPE OF THE AUDIT:

The grant awarded under the Strengthening Civil Society grant scheme is awarded to PACJA as the lead party of a consortium. The funds provided are to be spent by the individual consortium members, including the lead party; in this respect, the lead party is to be regarded as a consortium member.

The external auditor shall be a certified public accountant, who is an independent, licensed, and qualified practitioner of the accountancy profession. He or she must be registered with the national, legally recognised institute of registered accountants in her or his country of residence, which in its turn is a member of the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC). If in particular cases, it is not possible to identify such a certified public accountant, PACJA will appoint a competent auditor for the partner. The external auditor may not be an employee of the Partner, nor have a relation with the Partner that may result in conflict of interests.

Consortium members audit

The individual consortium partners’ financial reports must be audited in accordance with ISA 800/805. In addition, the Amount Disclosed Annexed must be audited in accordance with ISRS 4400. See details on annex 1 (Audit protocol MoFA)

The consortium partners must provide the following documents to PACJA

• The individual financial reports drawn up by each consortium partner (including the lead party regarding its own use of the grant) together with the Amount Disclosed Annexe.
• The audit opinions (ISA 800/805) on each partner’s financial report, as per the requirements of clause 4.1 of the audit protocol ( Refer annex 1 below). .
• The report of factual findings (ISRS 4400) as per the requirements of clause 4.2 of the audit protocol ( Refer annex 1 below).

Reporting

The financial report of the Implementing Partner must be audited in accordance with ISA800/805 and ISRS 4400. ( Refer the MoFA Audit Protocol)

The financial report submitted by the PACJA to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs comprises:

• The consolidated financial report for the consortium.
• Report on factual findings (Standard/ ISRS 4400) with the annexes
• The audit opinion

4       AUDIT APPROACH AND PROCEDURES:

The Auditor should perform the audit in accordance with the International Standards on Auditing (ISA) which requires that the Auditor should prepare audit documentation and obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence to support audit findings and to draw reasonable conclusions on which to base the audit opinion. The Auditor uses professional judgment to determine whether audit evidence is sufficient and appropriate taking into account the audit protocol. The auditor should be guided by clause 2 and 3 of the audit protocol on the approach and audit activities.

The Auditor should exercise due professional care and judgment and determine the nature, timing and extent of audit procedures to fit the objectives, scope and context of the audit.

The Audit procedure should include: –

• The audit must be performed in accordance with the law of the country of statutory residence of the lead party (will be mainly Dutch law) and applicable audit standards. If applicable International Audit Standards can be used.

The understanding should be sufficient to identify and assess the risks of material errors or misstatements in the expenditure and revenue stated in the Financial Report, whether caused by error or fraud, and sufficient to design and perform further audit procedures.

• Applying materiality

For the purpose of determining what a material misstatement or error is, the Auditor will apply a materiality threshold of> 2% of the total amount of gross expenditure for the Project with a confidence level of 95%.

The Auditor will report all financial findings regardless of the amount involved.

• Sampling and other means of selecting items for testing as considered appropriate by the Auditor
• Extrapolation as considered appropriate by the Auditor
• Using the work of Internal Auditors as considered appropriate by the Auditor.
• The auditor must request a letter of representation (LOR) from the grant recipient’s management stating that, to the best of their knowledge, the financial statements encompass all transactions and receipts, are accurate and complete in every respect and that all grant conditions, including those beyond the scope of the audit, have been met. In the letter of representation, management must specifically confirm that they have complied with article 7i of the grant decision.

5        DELIVERABLES:

1. Audited Financial Reports for the period 1st January 2023 – 31st December 2023. The financial information contained in the financial audit report of the auditor is to be expressed in Euros. The financial audit report of the auditor and all other documents resulting from the financial audit engagement must be prepared in English. Two bounds hard copies, one should stay at the Partner office and one should be sent to PACJA.
2. Audit opinion on individual financial reports (ISA 800/805) as per clause 4.1 of the audit protocol . The audit report must in any event include the audit goals and scope, the audit criteria applied in so far as relevant and the opinion. If the audit opinion is unqualified, the audit report must be drawn up in accordance with the model text as per audit protocol below or, where applicable, a more recent model text published on the IAASB’s website.
3. Report of factual findings (ISRS 4400) as per clause 4.2 of the audit protocol. The report of factual findings comprises the elements required under ISRS 4400 and describes the audit activities and findings regarding the aspects referred to in section 3.B of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs audit protocol (annex1 below).
4. Management Letter (matters for governance attention), which shall contain any findings made during the audit, including but not limited to:

• Any observed weaknesses in the system of internal controls and the recommendations for managing identified issues over the lifecycle of the Project.
• Any findings reported in the management letter must include responses and an action plan from Implementing partner Project Management Team.
• The observations in the “Management letter” must be accompanied by the implications, suggested recommendations from the auditors and the management comments on the observations/ recommendations.

6        PLANNING:

What	When?
Consortium member procure auditor Local audits at partner level conducted in the countries and reports submitted to Consortium member Consortium member audit conducted and reports submitted to PACJA Consortium consolidated financial audit report done and completed Audited report submitted to Donor	February 16, 2024 March 05, 2024   March 31, 2024 April 25, 2024 May 1, 2024

7        APPLICATION PROCEDURE:

Interested audit firms that meet the above criteria should send both technical and financial proposal for the audit of AACJ project implemented by Climate and Sustainable Development Network (CSDevNet); both proposals as one attachment to info@csdevnet.org copying stephenabu28@gmail.com umoru.ameh@yahoo.com   before 16^th February 2024.

To meet the above set timelines, the recruited audit firm should be ready to undertake the job immediately.