RiF 2021 Practical guidance on macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty

This practical guidance is part of the Risk in Focus 2021 publication. It aims to provide a concise overview of key publications and existing tools developed by the 10 European institutes of internal auditors in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, the UK & Ireland and publications from IIA Global.

This guidance is developed to help internal auditors address some of the key risks identified in Risk in Focus 2021, with the aim of contributing to the reduction of their impacts on businesses and stakeholders. Where the Risk in Focus report itself addresses the ‘WHAT-could be important to audit’, this guidance helps you address the ‘HOW-to audit’ this topic.

For the 2021 edition, practical guidance and webinars will be available on the following three chosen topics from the report:

• Guidance Cybersecurity and data security
• Webinar Cyber and Data Security 
• Guidance Macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty
• Guidance Climate change and environmental sustainability

These topics have been selected due to their current and foreseen importance for most organisations and take into consideration the needs of Chief Audit Executives to strengthen or expand their knowledge and experience in auditing these three fast-developing risks.

Please keep in mind that we intentionally chose to dive into some specific components of these three risks. Whilst we have endeavored to explore what we think are the key focus areas of these risks, a thorough understanding of their application may require additional research on your part, but we aim to provide a selection of what would benefit the most to the profession in the current context.

All practical guidance is designed to firstly, help practitioners learn from experienced professionals (experts, operational teams or internal audit), and, secondly, offer practitioners useful reflections that we believe are of particular interest when auditing these topics and their associated risk management processes.

About Macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty

33% of the CAEs surveyed in Risk in Focus 2021 cited macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty as a top five risk, and 8% say that this is the biggest single risk their company is currently exposed to. However, only 3% say that this is an area where internal audit currently spends most time and effort. 

We have taken this as an opportunity to take a closer look at how internal audit should approach macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty risks. What can internal audit do to ensure that the organisations they serve are prepared for these risks?