ANKARA, March 9, 2015 ─ A three-day Regional Workshop on Natural Capital Accounting (NCA) opened in Istanbul today to introduce more than 50 experts from twelve countries to the rationale for and tools to better monitor, manage, and enhance the productive use of natural assets in their respective countries. The workshop will present the methodology for NCA, and will illustrate it with the cases of water and forest accounts.
Bringing together experts from Albania, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, the workshop aims to stimulate discussion among countries on next steps for incorporating NCA into policy and development planning in their respective countries.
The Workshop is organized jointly by Turkey’s Ministry of Development, the Turkish Statistical Institute, and the World Bank under the auspices of the Wealth Accounting and Valuation of Ecosystem Services (WAVES) Partnership Program, in cooperation with Statistics Netherlands, the U.N. Economic Commission for Europe, and the UNDP.
In opening the Workshop, Martin Raiser, World Bank Country Director for Turkey, said, “Sustainable economic growth requires that countries build on and maintain their natural capital. Natural capital accounting is a key tool to facilitate better decision-making, oriented towards greater economic resilience and a more efficient use of a country’s natural endowments.”
In his opening remarks, Mehmet Aktaş, Vice President of the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat), stated that at its 44th Session in 2013 the UN Statistical Committee recognized the System of Environmental Economic Accounts Central Framework (SEEA-CF) as a useful measurement framework to inform several policy frameworks, including green growth, green economy, and sustainable development.
Aktaş stated: “In addition, the current discussion on the development of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a part of the Post 2015 Development Agenda presents another important opportunity to place the SEEA together with the System of National Accounts at the core of the monitoring framework of the SDGs. Within this scope, NCA would be beneficial for making policies on the natural resources of our country.”
The World Bank launched the Global Partnership for WAVES in 2010, providing technical support to developing countries to implement NCA. The partnership aims to promote sustainable development by ensuring that natural resources are mainstreamed in development planning and national economic accounts. This global partnership brings together a broad coalition of UN agencies, governments, international institutes, non-governmental organizations, and academics to implement Natural Capital Accounting (NCA) where there are internationally agreed standards, and develop approaches for other ecosystem service accounts.
For the workshop program and presentations, please go here.
For more information on WAVES, go to www.wavespartnership.org
For more information on the World Bank’s work in Turkey, please visit: https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/turkey
