The difference and diversity of community programs are key enablers of development sector programs. The program metrics, immaculate focus and the direction of fund level practices are guiding principles for successful achievement of funding objectives. The risk assessment for objective fund level practice involves huge commitment for program level resources and decisive for creating visible social impact and outcomes. The effectiveness of program budget must be capable enough to change the lives of beneficiaries and stakeholders.

The control deficiency in fund level practices must be evaluated in terms of material risk to financial budget and tax compliance affecting item-wise absorption of budgeted expenditure evaluated in terms of severity and magnitude of such materiality. The “after the fact” examination of financial budget absorption against budget line-items, and reported deviation between budgeted and actual expenditures with rigorous audit trails and financial reporting level data must be control objectives for donor or funding agencies to assess and measure financial reporting risk of funded entities.

The internal control reporting framework for any fund level activities must ensure that the control objectives related to funding process necessarily comply with the requirement of data, donor and development agency. The management sign-off for control objectives related fund outcomes must be incorporated in the contractual agreement itself. The fund level implementation of best practice and control assurance validation of each budget item are critical to meet the set of expectations of funding agencies for any sort of fund disbursement and approval.

Unfortunately, the infinitesimal attention on control objectives related to transparency in fund level practice are becoming counter-productive and detrimental to the feat of outcomes and objectives of the
development sector programs.