ISAR considers corporate reporting, climate-change reporting and corporate governance

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19 Oct, 2010

The twenty-seventh session of the Intergovernmental Working Group of Experts on International Standards of Accounting and Reporting (ISAR) was held in Geneva on 13-15 October 2010. ISAR assists developing countries and economies in transition to implement best practices in corporate transparency and accounting in order to facilitate investment flows and economic development.

ISAR's annual sessions regularly involve over 300 delegates from more than 100 countries.

The key outcomes from the session include:

  • Capacity-building framework for high-quality corporate reporting. The Group of Experts further underscored the need for high-quality corporate reports to facilitate the mobilisation of domestic and international financial resources and to foster investors' confidence. The paper considered at the meeting highlights IFRS (and the IFRS for SMEs and International Public Sector Accounting Standards) as key planks in this framework.
  • Climate change-related corporate reporting. The Group of Experts recognised that a harmonised approach to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions disclosure is necessary to improve high-quality corporate reporting to policymakers, investors and other stakeholders and as such also to facilitate low-carbon policies such as, inter alia, "cap-and-trade" systems and carbon taxes.
  • Corporate governance disclosures. The Group of Experts reiterated the importance of corporate governance disclosure for attracting investment and promoting sustainable and stable economic growth. ISAR recognised that high-quality disclosure in this area adds value for policymakers, shareholders and other stakeholders (see also our earlier story).

Click for Agreed conclusions from the session (link to United Nations Conference on Trade and Development website).

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