International Federation of Accountants

The International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) is the global organization for the accountancy profession. Founded in 1977, IFAC has over 187 members and associates in 140 jurisdictions, representing more than 3 million accountants in public practice, education, government service, industry, and commerce. The organization supports the development, adoption, and implementation of international standards for accounting education, ethics, and the public sector as well as audit and assurance. It supports four independent standard-setting boards, which establish international standards on ethics, auditing and assurance, accounting education, and public sector accounting. It also issues guidance to professional accountants in small and medium business accounting practices. To ensure the activities of IFAC and the independent standard-setting bodies supported by IFAC are responsive to the public interest, an international Public Interest Oversight Board (PIOB) was established in February 2005 by the Monitoring Group, which was formed when it became apparent that governance reform of the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) was needed. IFAC is not an accreditation organization. Membership of IFAC is not obtained via an accreditation process, but instead, IFAC membership is obtained via an application process that must be sponsored by at least one current IFAC member organizations. Among the key initiatives of IFAC is the organizing of the World Congress of Accountants.