Africa NCA Community of Practice

Africa Natural Capital Accounting Community of Practice

The Africa Natural Capital Accounting Community of Practice (NCA-CoP) is a regional learning and knowledge exchange platform dedicated to fostering the compilation of environmental-economic and ecosystems accounts in support to the design, implementation and evaluation of environmentally-friendly policies for a sustainable development in Africa.

Africa NCA CoP Newsletter Issue #9

Read here...

Africa NCA Community of Practice's Strategy and Roadmap for Sustainability 2025-2030

The Africa NCA CoP Secretariat, with funding and technical support from the World Bank and in collaboration with various key partners, has developed a comprehensive long-term NCA CoP Strategy and Roadmap for 2025–2030. This strategic initiative is designed to secure the sustainability and success of the CoP by outlining clear objectives and actionable steps that will guide its growth and impact. The Strategy reflects a collaborative effort to ensure that the CoP continues to thrive and deliver value to its stakeholders. It highlights the importance of African governments, partner institutions, and other stakeholders in supporting and enabling the CoP to bring together expertise and experience from African countries and around the world in NCA for the benefit of Africa. The draft Africa NCA CoP's Strategy and Roadmap was presented and discussed during a webinar on 18 September for input and support from partner institutions, governments, and all CoP members.

The recording of the webianr can be viewed here. The presenation on the Strategy is accessible here.

Third South Africa National Natural Capital Accounting Forum

South Africa just held its third National Natural Capital Accounting (NCA) Forum on 7-8 August 2024, as part of National NCA Strategy. The National NCA Forum 2024 offered an opportunity to reflect on achievements thus far and look towards how to chart the course for greater impact. The event, hosted by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) and organised in partnership with the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) and the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) was also supported by the Ecological Infrastructure for Water Security (EI4WS) Project and the Water Research Commission (WRC). The outcomes are expected to feed into multiple pathways, such as the review of the National NCA Strategy in 2026, reporting obligations, lessons learnt through the EI4WS Project, and insights from ongoing research on the impact of NCA in South Africa.
Read more...

Global Policy Forum on Natural Capital 2024

The Global Policy Forum on Natural Capital is the signature annual event of the Global Program on Sustainability. Co-organized with the United Nations Statistics Division, the Forum aims to connect users—primarily the investment community and policy makers—with both data and analytics, and data providers, to share knowledge and experiences on incorporating natural capital accounting and approaches in decision making.
The 7th Global Policy Forum on Natural Capital, Implementing the Global Biodiversity Framework: Leveraging Natural Capital Data, Accounting and Analysis to Inform Policies, taking place in Kagali, Rwanda on 4-6 March 2024.
Please register and watch online here.
Read more about the 7th Forum here.

The 'Nairobi Declaration Statement and Call to Action': an Outcome of the 2023 NCA CoP Policy Forum

The Second Africa Natural Capital Accounting (NCA) Policy Forum, convened under the auspices of Africa NCA Community of Practice (CoP), hosted by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics on behalf of the Kenyan Government in Nairobi on 6 and 7 September 2023, and comprising over 120 representatives from 30 countries.
Read the NCA CoP Nairobi Declaration Statement and Call to Action

Africa Natural Capital Accounting Policy Forum 2023 (September 6-7, 2023)

The Africa Natural Capital Accounting Policy Forum on Using Natural Capital Accounting (NCA) And Analysis to Inform Policies for Development, Climate Change and Nature Protection aims to provide participants with a platform to discuss the use of natural capital approaches, including natural capital accounting (NCA), and the challenges and opportunities in using natural capital data, tools and analysis to inform and support policies in African countries.

Launch of Zambia Wildlife And Protected Area Accounts To Support Nature-Based Tourism Report 2023

The Zambian government launched their first Wildlife and Protected Areas Accounts (WPAA) to Support Nature Based technical report under the Global Programme on Sustainability (GPS) on 9th June 2023. This makes it Zamia's fourth natural capital account (NCA) to be developed after the Water, Forest, and Land Accounts. The WPAA report highlights the changes in animal populations, their use, and partial accounts for the value of harvested wildlife and land cover changes in protected areas for the period 2008 to 2015.
Click to download report

Development of Ecosystem Accounts using ARIES for SEEA: Training for Country Practitioners

In order to support the uptake of SEEA Ecosystem Accounts and strengthen the capacity building of countries in the Community of Practice, UNEP, UNSD, UNDP, the Basque Centre for Climate Change, the GDSA Secretariat and the Regional Hub of the UN Global Platform in Rwanda organized a training programme for application of ARIES for SEEA application in selected GDSA member countries (Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa and Uganda). It was funded by UNEP and hosted by the National Institute for Statistics in Rwanda (NISR)

Launch of Ethiopia’s Natural Capital Accounting (NCA) initiative

The World Bank’s Global Program for Sustainability, in collaboration with the United Nations Statistics Division in partnership with the Ministry of Planning and Development, Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Agriculture held a workshop to launch Ethiopia’s Natural Capital Accounting (NCA) Initiative.

Africa NCA CoP Newsletter Issue #5

Learning opportunity on System of Environmental Economic Accounting – Ecosystem Accounting (11 April to 10 June 2022)

The United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) and UN Statistical Institute for Asia and the Pacific (UNSIAP) are jointly rolling out an e-Learning course on "System of Environmental Economic Accounting: Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA)". The course will run from 11 April to 10 June 2022.

Africa NCA CoP Newsletter Issue #4

Africa NCA CoP Newsletter Issue #3

UN adopts landmark framework to integrate natural capital in economic reporting

The new framework — the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting—Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA) — was adopted by the UN Statistical Commission and marks a major step forward that goes beyond the commonly used statistic of gross domestic product (GDP) that has dominated economic reporting since the end of World War II. This measure would ensure that natural capital—forests, wetlands and other ecosystems—are recognized in economic reporting.

Accounting Natural Capital in MENA Shifts Policies Towards Sustainable Growth

Nigeria Takes Step to Mainstream Natural Capital in System of National Accounting

E-course on Energy accounts (1 Sep - 19 Oct 2024)

UNECA is conducting an e-learning course on Energy Accounting to strengthen this essential knowledge base of African countries, to serve a basis for further capacity building works in countries that undertake to develop of update tteir energy accounts.
Access the concept note here.

e-Learning course on SEEA-CF: 4 Mar – 12 Apr 2024

UNESCAP-SIAP will be conducting an e-Learning course "Introduction to the System of Environmental Economic Accounting (SEEA): Central Framework" from 4 March to 12 April 2024. SIAP extends its invitation to the Africa NCA CoP. The invitation letter provides guidance for the registrations, which tshould be done by 29 February, while the Guidelines give an overview of the content and the organization of the course.

Training Opportunity: Macroeconomic Frameworks for an Inclusive Green Economy in Africa

This short term online training is organised by the ECA Institute for Economic Development and Planning. Applications are received until 31th May 2021. Click for more information.

Call to register: Virtual workshop on unpacking ocean accounts

This Workshop is being organised by Centre for Sustainable Oceans of the Cape Peninsula University of Technology.
Please find out more information and how to register.

Just happened: Webinar on the use of ecosystem accounts in policy analysis

The webinar on the use of ecosystem accounts in policy scenario analysis in the context of SEEA EEA aimed to raise understanding within the African NCA CoP of techniques for the use of natural capital accounts, especially ecosystem accounts, in scenario analysis to inform policy decision making, drawing on examples from Africa.

Uganda's first forest account

Uganda just published their first Forest Accounts! Find a brief summarizing the report here or the full report here.