SAO delegation headed by Auditor General Maksim Acevski and representatives from the UN Women Office in North Macedonia participated in the 68th Commission on the Status of Women held in the United Nations Headquarters in New York, USA.
Within the frames of the Commission on the Status of Women dedicated to the Role of supreme audit institutions in promoting gender equality, the State Audit Office, with the support of UN Women, hosted a side event on the topic "Supreme Audit Institutions as drivers for increasing accountability towards financing gender equality", Audit of SDG 5 - experiences from the Western Balkans.
At the side event, organized as a panel moderated by Ms. Ermira Lubani from UN Women, Auditor General presented SAO experience and achieved results in the implementation of gender audits. Mr. Acevski also presented key shortcomings identified with the coordinated performance audit on the topic "Gender equality of women from rural areas through their inclusion on the labor market", in which SAO was coordinator of the audit conduced together with the SAIs of Kosovo and Albania.
Ms. Lisa Sutton, UN Women Director of Independent Evaluation and Audit, and Ms. Sofia Orebrink, Expert on gender equality, had their insights and addresses on the subject. The video and brochure on the cooperative audit were also presented, which contain key shortcomings and activities of all three SAIs.
SAO delegation also held meetings with the Ambassador of the Mission of the Republic of North Macedonia to the United Nations in New York, Mr. Ljubomir Frchkovski, and with Ms. Lisa Sutton, UN Women Director.
The State Audit Office as the supreme audit institution of the Republic of North Macedonia has been successfully conducting gender audits for several years in cooperation with UN Women and thus makes a significant contribution to the advancement of gender equality in measures and policies in the country, the region and beyond.
