At IFAC, we believe strong Professional Accountancy Organizations (PAOs) are essential to a healthy global economy. They are trusted voices on financial reporting, ethics, and public accountability. To lead effectively, PAOs must be strategic, resilient, and focused on delivering real value to their members and stakeholders.

Today, we’re announcing the second edition of the IFAC Professional Accountancy Organization (PAO) Strategy Planning Toolkit: Continuous Learning and Improvement Edition. This updated toolkit simplifies and streamlines guidance, introduces new resources, and integrates an embedded Value Proposition Framework to help PAOs define and communicate their value, measure what matters, and adapt with confidence. These improvements come directly from user feedback and reflect IFAC’s own strategy proposition to deliver value to its members.

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Lee White, IFAC Chief Executive Officer, said, “We’ve seen firsthand how a clear and dynamic strategy strengthens purpose, focus, and impact. This second edition of our toolkit builds on lessons from our own strategic planning process, emphasizing continuous learning, adaptability, and measurable value. It’s about helping PAOs turn strategy into action, ensuring they remain relevant and resilient in a rapidly changing environment.” 

Jelena Misita, Chair of IFAC’s PAO Development Advisory Group, said, “We listened closely to PAOs using the first version, and one message was clear: they want to better define and demonstrate their value. The new edition integrates a Value Proposition Framework as an essential part of strategic planning, helping PAOs strengthen relevance, demonstrate impact more effectively, and align strategy and resources with their purpose.”

Patrick Kabuya, Senior Financial Management Specialist, the World Bank, said, “We appreciate the opportunity to collaborate with IFAC in promoting and supporting the rollout of the updated toolkit. We believe this toolkit will help build stronger, more sustainable, and relevant PAOs, which are essential for fostering trust, accountability, and transparency — key factors in driving sustainable economic growth.”

Sixto Coy, President, Institute of Chartered Accountants of the Caribbean (ICAC) said, “The Caribbean profession is strengthened when our PAOs have access to practical tools that help them plan strategically and deliver measurable value. IFAC’s updated toolkit reinforces our shared commitment to building trust, relevance, and resilience across the region’s accountancy profession.”

The toolkit was officially launched today ahead of an IFAC Value Proposition workshop co-hosted with ICAC and the World Bank in Barbados. This marks the culmination of a global rollout that included soft launch workshops with the Fédération Internationale des Experts-comptables Francophones in Lyon in September and with the Saudi Capital Market Authority and the Saudi Organization for Chartered and Professional Accountants in Riyadh on October 1 during IFAC Connect MENA.

We express our appreciation to Jelena Misita, Chair of the PAO Development Advisory Group, along with Berry Wammes, Chair of the Value Proposition Workstream, Panagiotis Alamanos, Chair of the Strategic Planning Workstream, and all workstream members for their leadership and valuable contributions.

The IFAC PAO Strategy Planning Toolkit is available now in English with translations to Arabic, Dutch, French, and Spanish coming soon.

Learn from the PAOs themselves how the toolkit has helped them become more resilient.

About IFAC
IFAC, by connecting and uniting its members, makes the accountancy profession truly global.

IFAC member organizations are champions of integrity and professional quality, and proudly carry their membership as a badge of international recognition.

IFAC and its members work together to shape the future of the profession through learning, innovation, a collective voice, and commitment to the public interest.

In partnership with the Institute of Chartered Accountants of the Caribbean (ICAC), IFAC has released a timely report emphasizing the critical role of the accountancy profession in accelerating climate resilience and energy transformation across the Caribbean.

Climate Challenges Demand Professional Action

IFAC and A4S hosted their Climate Week NYC event Finance Leaders Plugging the Net-Zero Information Gap: Exploring the critical role of CFOs and finance teams in the climate transition two weeks ago. The event brought together finance and accounting leaders to better understand how they're enabling their organization’s decarbonization strategies and transition planning and what obstacles they’re facing.

A recording of the event and takeaways are now available. 

“The task to decarbonizeeconomies is no mean feat,” said Kevin Dancey, IFAC CEO. “The quality of sustainability-related data and reporting processes must be improved to meet the demands of investors, regulators, and policy makers and the urgency of the climate crisis itself. Leveraging the skills of professional accountants to identify risks and opportunities and enhance climate-related information is an essential starting point.” 

Watch the recording and read the takeaways now. 

Together with ICAEW, The International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) today released a new installment in its Anti-Money Laundering: The Basics educational series: Installment Seven: Virtual Assets.  

The publication is part of a series helping accountants enhance their understanding of how money laundering works, the risks they face, and what they can do to mitigate these risks and make a positive contribution to the public interest. Installment seven looks at the broad new class of assets that have emerged over the past decade known as virtual assets, including Bitcoin and NFTs (non-fungible tokens).

Anti-Money Laundering: The Basics is user-friendly, easily accessible, and will be a resource for Small and Medium Practices (SMPs) and accountants less familiar with AML, while also providing guidance for those looking for a quick refresher or reference. Future installments will examine trends in money laundering and tools to fight back illegal activities.

Anti-Money Laundering: The Basics is featured on both the IFAC (landing page) and ICAEW websites and available for download for free. To be globally relevant, the series uses the risk-based approach of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) – the global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog -- as a starting point. 

For more information about IFAC, visit www.ifac.org.

For more information about ICAEW, visit https://www.icaew.com/.

As the global voice of the accountancy profession, IFAC releases Points of View (POVs) on key policy issues impacting the accounting profession and the whole of society. These POVs are well-researched tools available for anyone to use in gaining an understanding of crucial topics affecting our world and potentially influencing policies that affect us all.

To make its POVs more accessible to its global constituency and their stakeholders, IFAC has published all seven of its POVs, originally only available in English, into four additional languages: Arabic, French, Russian, and Spanish.

"From improving public sector transparency with data-driven decisions to providing investors with high-quality and trustworthy sustainability information, these POVs cover a broad range of topics of critical importance to professional accountants worldwide,” said Kevin Dancey, IFAC CEO. “These translations will improve the ability of professional accountants to make an impact in their companies and jurisdictions.”

The topics covered in the POVs are:

Enhancing Corporate Reporting: Corporate reporting should capture all relevant information about organizations. However, investors and other stakeholders are demanding more, higher-quality information and insights about company performance, risks, opportunities, and long-term prospects, especially with respect to sustainability-related matters, than are available from the conventional financial reporting process.

Greater Transparency and Accountability in the Public Sector: This POV explores how governments can use the resources they have to have to make informed, data-driven decisions with strong governance and public financial management (PFM) and how the accountancy profession can work with the public sector to help deliver a more sustainable, inclusive, and prosperous future for all. 

Embracing a People-Centered Profession: The accountancy profession is first and foremost a profession made of people—individuals and teams working collaboratively and collectively. This POV explores the connection between the people in the accountancy profession, the core components of the profession (education, professional judgment, ethics, values) and the profession’s commitment to the public interest.

Maintaining Trust & Confidence During a Crisis: Maintaining trust and confidence during a crisis is the fastest path to recovery after a crisis. This POV explores the key roles that regulators, the global accounting profession and those charged with governance have to play in maintaining trust.

Achieving High-Quality Audits: High-quality audits of financial statements are essential to strong, sustainable organizations, financial markets and economies. All participants in the audit and assurance ecosystem must act to improve the audit process, and we outline how.

Climate Action: Climate change is an urgent, global, and systemic issue that can threaten the sustainability of organizations, markets, and economies. This POV outlines how to embrace climate action and be part of the solution.

Fighting Corruption and Money Laundering: The consequences of corruption are significant and widespread, from direct costs to individuals and society, to encouraging criminal behavior and undermining trust in institutions. Grounded in a strong ethical code, professional accountants across the globe play a critical role in the fight against corruption.

Access the POVs here in each language.

About IFAC

IFAC is the global organization for the accountancy profession dedicated to serving the public interest by strengthening the profession and contributing to the development of strong international economies. IFAC is comprised of 180 members and associates in 135 countries and jurisdictions, representing more than 3 million accountants in public practice, education, government service, industry, and commerce.

As the drive toward a global system for sustainability-related reporting continues, investors, regulators and policymakers are turning their attention to the important role of assurance in ensuring high-quality reporting. With the growing importance of—and reliance on—sustainability information, low-quality assurance is an emerging investor protection and financial stability risk.

IFAC’s Professional Accountants in Business (PAIB) Advisory Group has compiled insights on key global trends impacting the future readiness of the accountancy profession in a new report Enabling Purpose Driven Organizations: PAIBs Leading Sustainability and Digital Transformation.

This report includes highlights from the PAIB March 2021 meeting, focusing on:

• Enabling value creation and sustainability 
• Delivering on climate change 
• How procurement and supply chain operating models are changing the role of finance functions 
• The changing nature of work and remote finance Gen Z and the future of accountancy 
• Public sector priorities to support COVID-19 recovery

IFAC PAIB Advisory Group Chair Sanjay Rughani says: “It is important we continue to drive forward the key areas of the PAIB agenda and share our learnings across the global accountancy profession. Together, we can enable a PAIB-relevant profession that is attractive to the new generation entering the workforce.”

Access the report and additional insights.