A SHORT PRESENTATION OF FIDEF

 

La Fédération Internationale Des Experts-Comptables et Commissaires aux Comptes Francophones (‘FIDEF’), which was created in 1981, is an international federation that regroups most accounting institutes in French-speaking countries around the world. These institutes are usually Orders of chartered accountants, chartered professional accountants, statutory auditors and/or certified public accountants, recognized as such by their respective governments. Generally, there are between one and three institutes  representing the accounting profession in a given country: Chartered Accountants, Auditors and Accountants.

 

To date 37 countries, representing 52 organizations, are members of FIDEF. These members are considered either as « active members » or « associate members ». Active members represent professional accounting organizations (‘PAOs’) officially recognized as such in their own country. Associate members can represent any organization, public or private, associated with our profession for example in the fields of training, standard-setting, teaching, associations of accountants or other non-formally recognized organization. Associate members do not benefit from all of FIDEF’s services and do not have the right to vote at annual general meetings.

 

Only very few French-speaking countries are not (or not yet) members of FIDEF.

While our members generally emanate from countries which primarily use the French language, FIDEF is an inclusive organization and welcomes as members certain countries which, even if they do not use the French language on a daily basis, have been admitted as members by the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (‘OIF’). Thus, among our members countries, we have, for example, Lebanon, Romania, Cambodia, Armenia and many others.

 

The object and reason for being of FIDEF are multiple:

 

• To federate and organize a « francophone voice » in parallel, or in addition to, the English voice used mainly in our profession worldwide;
• To promote accounting and professional standardization amongst its members;
• To assist its members in their needs, issues or requests of any kind, by seeking answers or solutions amongst other members of FIDEF, including providing support for training initiatives;
• To assist its members in reaching a level of technical skill consistent and in line with the economic needs of each country;
• To carry out the translation in French of some texts, issued by the International Federation of Accountants (‘IFAC’), but which exist only in English, and to ensure the wide circulation of the translated texts;
• To represent Francophone members at international organizations;
• To reflect broadly, together with its members, on the organization and prerogatives of national accounting institutes.

 

Some examples of recent actions lead by FIDEF to the benefit of its members:

 

1. Provided assistance, with the help of the Ordre des experts-comptables of France, to the drafting of the necessary constituting texts for the establishment of the first institute of chartered accountants or auditors in certain member countries which had yet to do so;
2. Organized a number of training sessions on topics of current interest: money laundering, digital transformation of the profession, cyber risks and sustainable development. These training sessions are offered to all our members who were interested, the members having themselves to only cover the expenses of the session leader’s trip to their home country. The cost of the training session itself is covered directly by FIDEF for all interested member countries;
3. Translated in French the latest versions of IFAC’s Statements of Membership Obligations (‘SMOs’), as well as a number of other works published by IFAC originally only in English;
4. Facilitated a comprehensive reflection on the topic of the informal (or emerging) economy, mainly in Francophone African countries. For many of our member countries, this topic is of particular interest since this economy can represent up to 80% of the total economic activity of the country.