Professional Accountancy Organizations, or PAOs, are one of the key pillars in the economic and social development of a nation. Through promoting international standards and ethics, educating professional accountants, ensuring that the quality of audit and accounting services are maintained and supporting the public sector, PAOs contribute to building a strong accountancy profession, which in turn contributes to strong and sustainable economies.

A sound and responsive strategy is part of the  foundation of effective PAO operations and value creation. Ensuring that strategic planning is robust and adapted to PAO mandates, a Strategic Planning Toolkit provides a highly practical approach that is aligned to IFAC’s Statements of Membership Obligations (SMOs). PAOs in turn require a comprehensive and easy-to-use framework to help them develop, implement and evaluate the performance of their strategies whilst ensuring SMO compliance.

The Emirates Association for Accountants and Auditors (EAAA), an IFAC Associate member since 2020, has been leading the audit and accountancy progression in the United Arab Emirates since 1997. The Association was the first PAO to adopt and pilot the Toolkit as its strategic planning tool in May 2024.

EAAA already had a strategy in place prior to adopting the Toolkit, forming a good basis for further enhancement. Over a period of two months, EAAA Board and management. with the support of an external consultant, worked through each step of the Toolkit in order to update  EAAA’s existing strategy using the suggested approaches. They also to developed an implementation plan and a monitoring and evaluation framework to ensure that the strategy did not remain just a document, but became a tool for continuous review and improvement of EAAA’s operations.

Implementing the Toolkit

The EAAA team started with gathering information relevant to the strategic planning process. This included reviewing its existing strategy and development process, governance structures, legislation and regulatory acts, its membership base and stakeholder feedback. This information was input into formulating the vision, mission, values and strategic objectives of the Association focusing on value, excellence, ethics and professionalism as guiding principles.

As a next step, SWOT analysis was performed to identify the areas which EAAA needed to address through its strategic objectives,  its internal weaknesses and external threats. In doing this, they pinpointed and addressed strengths and opportunities. Following the SWOT analysis, the team has developed a number of strategic initiatives aimed at meeting the objectives. The initiatives were developed with the view of embedding partnerships, member value, digitization and global recognition into EAAA strategic activities.

Each strategic initiative was assigned one or more Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in order to ensure that performance could be measured objectively and progress could be tracked. Establishing the KPIs was also critical at this stage as they were the guiding stars of the monitoring and evaluation framework.  EAAA also chose to perform risk assessment of its strategic initiatives, identifying the potential risks and developing safeguards for each.

Once the strategic plan was developed, it was crucial that it remained a living document and was implemented in practice. To support this, the Toolkit provides guidelines for developing a strategy implementation plan. EAAA has taken this guidance to break down each strategic initiative into smaller activities, assign responsibilities, timeframes, key milestones and deliverables for each activity. The overall implementation plan was supported by a resource plan and a stakeholder communication plan, bringing all of the elements of the strategy to life.

The final phase of the Toolkit was measurement of performance. For that, EAAA developed a Monitoring and Evaluation Framework, which includes guidance on the data sources and data points which need to be collected in order to evaluate performance, as well as performance evaluation guidance creating space for assessing the KPIs, conducting root cause analysis and developing an improvement plan for next year that draws from the lessons learnt.

Lessons Learned and Next Steps

It is important to note that a PAO strategy should address the most important priorities and areas that are critical to overall, looking at sustainable performance rather than focusing on small tasks and activities. EAAA has embedded into its strategic plan the key themes that it is looking to address by 2027, when the next strategic planning cycle begins.

As an IFAC associate on the journey to full membership, EAAA’s strategic plan also includes key areas from its IFAC Action Plan, a guiding document ensuring its compliance to IFAC SMOs. For EAAA, it was important to reflect the priority areas of the Action Plan in its strategy, such as operationalization of its Investigation and Discipline regime, supporting international standards adoption and implementation in the UAE and supporting the Ministry of Economy with establishing a sound audit oversight scheme. These areas are central to its mandate and SMO compliance. The Toolkit has been designed in such a way that it allows for PAOs to incorporate their IFAC Action Plans into their strategies.

The experience of implementing the Toolkit as a strategy planning tool has shown that having a helpful framework that was designed specifically for PAOs provides a solid foundation for an easy and viable planning process, which can be smoothly embedded into the governance processes. As Ahmad Darwish, Vice-Chairman of EAAA, has highlighted, the Toolkit “created an agile environment” for the strategic planning process promoting “sustainable growth of our organization”.

Currently, EAAA is in the process of implementing the strategy through its implementation plan and the year-end will be an important milestone when the Monitoring and Evaluation Framework will be employed to assess the Association’s strategic performance for the first 6 months of the updated strategy cycle. It has been a valuable experience for EAAA as a trailblazer implementing the Toolkit and an exciting future is ahead to reap the rewards of a more robust, sustainable and holistic strategic planning approach.

A man in white clothing standing
His Excellency Saif Mohammed bin Abed Al Muhairi

Chairman of the Board of the Emirates Association of Accountants and Auditors

His Excellency Saif bin Abed Al Muhairi has strategically repositioned the Emirates Association of Accountants and Auditors (EAAA) as a pivotal force in the evolution of the accounting and auditing profession in the UAE.

Under his leadership, EAAA has been instrumental in spreading financial knowledge and building competence in emerging areas of the UAE financial sector, such as tax implementation and public-private partnerships (PPP). Al Muhairi’s efforts were key in launching the UAE Chartered Accountant (UAECA) certification, which aligns with prestigious international qualifications like ACCA, enhancing both local and global recognition.

His strategic vision also led to EAAA’s full membership in the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC), broadening its global influence and facilitating valuable partnerships with key global players, including the World Bank and significant regional entities.

Additionally, Al Muhairi has championed initiatives to attract and develop local Emirati talent in the profession. Programs such as the “Emiratis in Accounting, Auditing, and Financial Management” and the “100 Emirati Chartered Accountants Initiative” have successfully elevated the profession and bolstered the UAE’s economic development. These initiatives underscore EAAA’s role as a catalyst for innovation and excellence, fostering the growth of Emirati professionals and advancing the UAE’s financial sector.”

Zarif Ludin
Muhammad Zarif Ludin

Head of Institutional Partnerships

Zarif Ludin is the Head of Institutional Partnership at ACCA and leads and develops strategic partnerships with regional and global accountancy organizations, donors and development agencies, and represents ACCA in external forums and consistently promotes ACCA’s global contribution to public value. Zarif Ludin serves ACCA’s Category “A” observer at the IFAC board and PAODAG as a Technical Assistant and is a member of the Ethics working group at CAPA.  

Zarif Ludin was the Chief Executive of CPA Afghanistan at the Ministry of Finance, Afghanistan, since June 2013, being responsible for the enactment of accountancy law, the establishment of the executive office, board and related technical committees and the capacity building of accountants and auditors. Zarif Ludin focused on quality education, well-defined regulations and CPA Afghanistan’s recognition on national, regional and international platforms. He played a significant role in obtaining South Asia Federation of Accountants (SAFA) and Confederation of Asia and Pacific Accountants (CAPA) associate memberships for CPA Afghanistan. He initiated the idea of Strategic Partnership and revenue sharing for CPA Afghanistan jointly with ACCA.

In addition, he has experience of more than 12 years of working with different Organizations like USAID and US embassy-funded programs, Financial Institutions and Banks, NGOs and Universities as a Finance Manager, Program Coordinator and part-time Lecturer. Zarif holds a master’s degree in Public Policy from the Graduate Institute of Geneva.

A woman standing wearing a printed scarf
Olga Akimova

Managing Partner, Lynceus Management Consulting

Olga Akimova is the Managing Partner of Lynceus Management Consulting, a consultancy practice based in the United Arab Emirates, leading the firm’s work with the public sector, professional accountancy organizations and education institutions.

Olga has over a decade of experience with a Big4 accountancy firm in Eurasia working in external audit and governance, internal audit, risk and compliance services with a focus on developing and implementing international best practice and tailored governance frameworks. She has also worked as Head of Education and Policy with the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) leading initiatives in developing the finance profession in Eurasia through accountancy education and collaboration with regulators and professional accountancy organizations on establishing sound legal frameworks and infrastructure for professional accountancy education.