Intergovernmental working group of experts on international standards of accounting and reporting, 41st session

Your Excellencies, 

Distinguished officials, 

Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends,

It is a great pleasure to welcome you to the forty-first session of the Intergovernmental Working Group on International Standards of Accounting and Reporting – ISAR.

For many years, UN Trade and Development has played a vital role in advancing global efforts to harmonize financial and sustainability reporting standards. 

These efforts have been guided by two important principles – Consistency and Transparency – which underscore the importance of our discussions over the next three days. 

Without consistency, there is no harmony, no comparability, no clarity across reporting standards. 

And without transparency, there is no trust.

And this is more than just principles.

For example, to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, we must overcome the challenge of stagnating sustainable investment, particularly in the Global South. 

Despite the growth of the sustainable finance market to seven trillion dollars, new inflows into sustainable funds declined by sixty percent last year due to concerns over greenwashing. 

Transparency and consistency are crucial to address this and unlock the significant opportunities that do exist.
 

Excellencies, 

In closing, let me emphasize the crucial role of this forty-first International Standards of Accounting and Reporting (ISAR) session in shaping the future of sustainability reporting. 

We stand at the cusp of a major transformation, with new standards from the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) and European Union (EU) regulations coming into effect next year, affecting companies representing forty percent of global market capitalization and responsible for fifty percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. 

This presents both challenges and immense potential, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises adapting to these changes.

Our discussions will focus on ensuring a reliable and globally comparable reporting ecosystem.

This requires not only harmonized standards, but also consistent implementation and enforcement worldwide.

Capacity-building initiatives, like the UNCTAD Regional Partnerships many of you have participated in, are essential in achieving this.

I look forward to hearing insights from these partnerships during our session.

I commend ISAR’s history of addressing complex issues and delivering valuable outcomes for member States. 

I really thank all of you for being here. I wish you a fruitful, successful and above all impactful forty-first session.