SAI20 Engagement Group’s First Senior Officials Meeting Begins in Guwahati

GUWAHATI: The first meeting of the Senior Officials of the SAI20 Engagement Group under India’s presidency in the G20 group started in Guwahati today. Girish Chandra Murmu, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India led the deliberations as the Chair of the Supreme Audit Institutions-20 (SAI20) Engagement Group.

This event is being attended by 39 participants of National and International delegates from G20 member SAIs, Guest SAIs and WB as well as invited organisations. SAIs of Australia, Brazil, Egypt, Indonesia, Oman, the Republic of Korea, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and UAE also participated.

The CAG highlighted that the SAI20 Senior Officials Meeting 2023 is a symbol of global cooperation and joint efforts of the Supreme Audit Institutions of all the member G20 countries. He said that the world was seized of multiple challenges and the biggest ones are sustainable development. He further stated that climate change and its impact on biodiversity and food security are emerging challenges threatening sustainable development goals.

While recognizing the importance of sustainability, growth and the role of emerging technologies, he informed that the SAI20 priority areas of “Blue Economy” and “Responsible Artificial Intelligence” represents the new-age opportunities and concerns and these underline the need for genuine cooperation, CAG informed that in an effort to understand the global experiences and initiatives and to know how external stakeholders view the role of Audit in these areas, they interacted with many domain experts from government and the private sector and conducted seminars on these themes on last month.

While explaining the criticality of the priority area of the Blue Economy, the CAG stated that the Blue economy is an economic system that encompasses a spectrum of policy and operational dimensions aimed at conserving marine and freshwater environments while promoting their sustainable use, producing food and energy, supporting livelihoods, and acting as a driver for economic advancement and welfare.

While speaking about the second priority area – Responsible Artificial Intelligence(AI), CAG highlighted that democratization of AI technologies is inevitable and AI could be used to benefit citizens and the country through targeted and timely intervention. CAG also highlighted that AI had the potential to solve issues related to areas like Healthcare, retail, finance, agriculture, food, water resources, environment and pollution, education, special needs, transportation, energy, public safety, disaster management and judiciary.

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