The International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) is the global organization for the accountancy profession. IFAC has 157 member bodies and associates in 123 countries and jurisdictions, representing more than 2.5 million accountants employed in public practice, industry and commerce, government, and academe. The organization, through its independent standard-setting boards, establishes international standards on ethics,auditing and assurance, education, and public sector accounting. It also issues guidance to encourage high quality performance by professional accountants in business. Founded in 1977, IFAC celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2007.

To ensure the activities of IFAC and the independent standard setting bodies supported by IFAC are responsive to public interest, an international Public Interest Oversight Board (PIOB) was established in February 2005. The main purpose of PIOB is to ensure that the auditing and assurance, ethics and educational standards for the accounting profession are set in a transparent manner and reflects the public interest. ^[1]

IFAC and its members collaborated to develop IFACnet - A KnowledgeNet for Professional Accountants, which was launched on October 2, 2006. IFACnet provides professional accountants worldwide with one-stop access to a wide range of resources, including good practice guidance, articles, and tools and techniques.

On August 1, 2007, IFAC launched a multilingual website that provides information about the organization and its activities in the six working languages of the United Nations, which are Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, and Spanish, in addition to English, IFAC's official language.

Among the key initiatives of IFAC is the organising of the World Congress of Accountants, which is a platform for the discussion on matters critical to the development of the accountancy profession.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• International Federation of Accountants (official)
• IFACnet - A KnowledgeNet for Professional Accountants