Building a Better Auditor: The Lost Dream of Atlantropa

At first glance, Project Atlantropa seemed revolutionary. Sörgel said this could solve Europe’s energy and land scarcity issues because such a dam could generate enormous hydroelectric power and expose new land for farming and development. It also promised to build connections between Europe and Africa. Its positives were compelling; it was a bold attempt to address multiple global challenges.

Yet, despite its promise, Atlantropa never moved beyond the drawing board. The project ultimately collapsed under the weight of its own ambition.

Draining the Mediterranean would have devastated marine ecosystems and altered regional climates. Politically, it was impossible — the project required dozens of nations to cede control over their coasts and waters, an unrealistic expectation in a world of competing national interests. The engineering scale also far exceeded the capabilities of the 1920s, and the projected costs were astronomical. No government could realistically fund it. Most importantly, the plan lacked a grounded path to reality, assuming nature and nations would simply cooperate and ignoring resistance, adaptability, and evolving conditions.

Ultimately, Atlantropa became a fascinating “what if” in history — impressive in theory but unworkable in practice.

The Parallel with Internal Audit Planning

It may seem like a stretch, but there’s a surprising parallel between Project Atlantropa and how organizations approach internal audit planning.

An audit plan may look impressive on paper — comprehensive, ambitious in scope, and well structured — but it can fail in practice if it isn’t agile, carefully curated, and aligned to real risks. Like Atlantropa, a plan that cannot adapt to reality will fail to deliver value. It is important to note that an audit plan is not a mere checklist. It’s a framework that guides the organization in managing risk, compliance, and operational efficiency. Without flexibility and focus, even the most ambitious plan becomes obsolete when crises arise.

Consider a company that designs its annual internal audit plan at the start of the year and never revisits it. The plan focuses on auditing routine processes that are already well-controlled. Perhaps it even breaks new ground by planning to cover organizational culture or another worthy area of interest to the CAE. However, the plan ignores emerging risks like cybersecurity, third party vendors, or regulatory changes.

Assume a major cybersecurity breach occurs mid-year. Now the internal audit team has no allocated bandwidth to respond. High-risk areas have gone unmonitored and critical controls untested, and perhaps management questions the function’s relevance: If audit can’t warn us about our biggest risks, what is the point? This is the corporate equivalent of Atlantropa: ambitious on paper, ineffective in reality.

A Good Audit Plan: Agile and Grounded

A company that builds agility into its audit planning prepares an annual plan but reassesses it frequently, factoring in business changes, regulatory updates, and emerging threats. Here are some examples:

• When a new cloud vendor is onboarded, a focused audit on vendor risk is added.
• Regulatory scrutiny around data privacy intensifies, prompting reprioritization of compliance audits.
• Operations expand into a new geography, triggering risk assessment and audit coverage for local compliance.

A plan like this is dynamic and adaptive. It balances long-term coverage with short-term responsiveness. The plan evolves as risks evolve, maintaining relevance and value throughout the year.

Lessons for Internal Audit Professionals

Atlantropa’s failure underscores a timeless lesson: Vision must be matched with feasibility, adaptability, continuous reassessment, and grounded execution.

Curate with care — Build a plan based on current and forward-looking risks, not just historical focus areas.

Stay agile — Be ready to pivot as risks, priorities, and regulations evolve.

Prioritize impact — Focus resources on areas of highest risk and relevance.

Plan based on risk, not numbers — The effectiveness of an audit plan isn’t measured by the number of audits carried out, but by how well it protects the organization from its most critical risks.

Atlantropa failed not because the vision was unworthy, but because the plan was blind to reality. Internal audit cannot afford the same mistake. Every internal audit professionals must ask themselves: “Is my audit plan agile and adapted to reality, or is it our organization’s Atlantropa — an impressive dream that fails in execution?”

By curating thoughtful, agile, and realistic audit plans, organizations can ensure that vision and execution go hand in hand, transforming ambitious ideas into meaningful, measurable results.