Audit Reports

As part of its annual workplan, the Office of Internal Audit conducted an audit of the Supply Chain Cash-Based Transfers, Retail and Markets Unit’s governance arrangements (including funding and systems), to assess whether they effectively support WFP’s market-based interventions. As WFP increases its cash-based assistance, it also increasingly supports the development of markets where beneficiaries buy their food and other essential items. The Supply Chain Cash-Based Transfers, Retail and Markets Unit was created in 2015 as WFP’s supply chain unit to assist in defining WFP’s supply chain roles and responsibilities related to the organization’s cash-based transfer and voucher operations, and to standardize them throughout all WFP operations, while also providing support to country office field operations. Initially covering both procurement and supply chain logistics activities, the unit has specialized over the years and now fully supports markets and retail activities. The unit has developed market assessments and a retail onboarding and contracting system, as well as numerous guidance and manuals. In 2022, the unit successfully supported 10 country offices through oversight and support missions and trained about 230 WFP personnel. As part of the audit, the audit team surveyed six regional bureaux and 40 country offices implementing market-based interventions at various levels of maturity. The audit did not include a review of the implementation and operational delivery of retail activities in the field and therefore makes no related statements or assumptions about its effectiveness or efficiency. Based on the results of the audit, the Office of Internal Audit reached an overall conclusion of some improvement needed.

The audit focused on governance and risk management, beneficiary management, cash-based transfers, supply chain, monitoring, managing non-governmental organizations, and resource management. Guided by the Country Strategic Plan 2018–2025, WFP operations in Uganda include: food and nutrition; assistance for refugees; nutrition intervention to address the root causes and effects of food insecurity and malnutrition; and providing income support and training to people facing food insecurity to help them build resilience and capacities to adapt to climatic shocks. In 2022, WFP assisted 1.8 million beneficiaries, including 1.3 million refugees, by providing 84,740 metric tons of food and USD 45.2 million in cash transfers. Uganda hosts more than 1.5 million refugees and asylum seekers, mainly from South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, and Burundi. The audit reviewed three activities under strategic outcomes 1 and 2, which accounted for 92 percent of the total direct operational costs and 95 percent of the beneficiary caseload during the audit period: (a) Provide food and nutrition assistance and promote financial inclusion of refugees (activity 1); (b) Provide food and nutrition assistance to crisis-affected households (activity 2); and (c) Provide nutritious hot meals to children attending school. Based on the results of the audit, the Office of Internal Audit reached an overall conclusion of some improvement needed.

As part of its annual workplan, the Office of Internal Audit conducted an audit of WFP’s staffing in emergencies. The audit focused on a review of WFP’s emergency staffing preparation, staffing scale-up and risks to staff wellness in emergencies. The team surveyed 28 country offices under an emergency designation and performed detailed reviews of emergencies in the following countries: Afghanistan, Haiti, Somalia, Sri Lanka and Ukraine. WFP seeks to continuously strengthen its response to saving lives by effectively and efficiently supporting its emergency operations with the right skill sets and people. WFP is committed to providing its employees with an enabling and supportive workplace and ensuring that an effective health and welfare risk management process is in place. WFP faced unprecedented humanitarian needs worldwide in 2022, assisting 158 million people. In the period from January 2016 to December 2022, WFP responded to 128 emergencies, including in Afghanistan, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Currently, more than half of WFP’s 23,000 global employees serve in emergency duty stations assisting beneficiaries. Based on the audit results, the Office of Internal Audit reached an overall conclusion of major improvement needed.