December 2023

FEATURED

This report presents the main findings and lessons from the Wealth Accounting and Valuation of Ecosystem Services (WAVES) Plus Program. WAVES Plus was designed to strengthen wealth and Natural Capital Accounting (NCA) activities initiated under the previous WAVES program. It aimed to promote sustainable development by incorporating the physical and monetary values of natural capital in decision-making processes. The closeout report shows that the program achieved its main targets. 


Download the report

The GPS Annual Report presents results accomplished during Fiscal Year 2022 (FY22, from July 1, 2021, to June 30, 2022), by both the WAVES Plus and the GPS Multi-Donor Trust Funds (MDTFs).


In addition to results achieved during FY22, the report also summarizes relevant events and activities that that have taken place during the second semester of 2022.



Download the report

PAST EVENTS

Natural Capital Policy Forum Africa Community of Practice

GPS Seminar Series

Ghana NCA Forum

GPS, PROGREEN, and PROBLUE Joint Technical Meetings and Site Visits with Development Partners

GPS at COP28

Upcoming Events


DATA TOOLS

ESG Data Portal


TRAININGS

EESP Training Program



NEW PUBLICATIONS

NEWS AND BLOGS

EVENTS

Natural Capital Policy Forum

Africa Community of Practice

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 provided 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.

Visit the event website to read the background paper, the Forum report and the Africa NCA Community of Practice (CoP) Nairobi Declaration Statement and Call to Action


Website
Resources

GPS Seminar Series

The GPS Seminar Series presents regular virtual events on the latest knowledge on how policy makers and the financial sector can integrate environmental sustainability considerations into decision Making. Topics over the past few months have included Strengthening the Capacity for Measuring and Valuing Natural Capital in Ghana, Renewable Energy: Unaccounted Wealth of Nations, and Improving Natural Capital Management in Lao PDR.

Watch past sessions here 

Ghana NCA Forum

The Government of Ghana, with support from the GPS, and in partnership with the United Nations Statistics Division hosted a National Forum on Natural Capital Accounting (NCA) on Thursday, June 15, 2023, in Accra, to initiate discussions towards the adoption of NCA to better inform decision-making in national policy strategies and implementation. 


The Ghana-World Bank NCA programme started in March 2022 to among others, facilitate the mainstreaming of natural capital into development planning, policy formulation and implementation, and informing investments. As part of the progress made so far in the Programme, the national forum on NCA took stock of outputs and achievements as well as highlighted key preliminary results and their policy implications for consideration by relevant stakeholders.


Slides and materials

Press coverage, here

GPS, PROGREEN, and PROBLUE Joint Technical Meetings and Site Visits with Development Partners

Between June 12-16, 2023, the World Bank’s Environment, Natural Resources and Blue Economy Global Practice gathered development partners from its three Trust Funds in Ghana to discuss sustainable natural resource management work across the landscape, seascape, natural capital accounting, and biodiversity agendas. The meetings aimed to spotlight the collaboration of the three Trust Funds – GPS, PROGREEN, and PROBLUE – and the associated successes, challenges, and opportunities; to showcase Ghana as an example of where the three Trust Funds collaborate for impact; and to chart a path forward between Trust Funds and development partners. A delegation from the World Bank joined Ghana-based colleagues, government partners, and development partners from Germany, the UK, Norway, Sweden, and the U.S. for a week of joint technical meetings, workshops, and field visits.


Read more

GPS at COP28

Defining Pathways for Nature Finance

This event presented how we approach this agenda by identifying key barriers to investments in nature-based solutions and proposing concrete interventions, with the engagement of speakers from the public sector, private sector, and civil society.

Watch event



Upcoming Events

SAVE THE DATE - GPS Global Policy Forum | March 5-6, 2024 | Kigali, Rwanda


DATA TOOLS

The database has been refreshed to include 2022 data on many indicators. Previously, the portal had 131 indicators, 61 years of data, and covered 217 economies. With the update, the portal has 135 indicators, 62 years of data, and covers 211 economies. With the availability of new or improved datasets and additional coverage we are always striving to provide the best data we can through the portal.

See our exciting data stories on the new Standardized Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index and the Economic and Social Rights Performance Score

TRAININGS

Embedding Ecosystems Services into Policy (EESP) Training Program


The Global Program for Sustainability (GPS) and the Biodiversity, Ecosystems, and Landscape Assessment (BELA) initiative at the World Bank launched the Embedding Ecosystems Services into Policy (EESP) training program. This program aims to deliver tailored capacity-building to support policymakers and technical staff in governments to move beyond the initial landscape and ecosystems assessments to translate biophysical analyses into financial and economic feasibility and trade-off analyses that can inform policy development and planning processes.The program has already delivered trainings in Malawi, Lesotho, Zambia and Ehtiopia.


Learn more

NEW PUBLICATIONS

Investing in nature can improve equity and economic returns

Read more (paywall)

Growing the economy while also protecting the environment is essential for achieving sustainable development. To provide better understanding about what policies might achieve both goals, this article combined a global economic model with ecosystem service models, showing how markets and policy drive ecosystem change, and in turn how changes in ecosystem services affect the economy. The authors show that the degradation of nature causes large losses to the economy and that these damages hurt low-income countries the most. They also show that policies that invest in nature can greatly improve economic and environmental outcomes.


Background paper for Africa NCA Forum 2023 

Natural Capital Accounting to Inform Climate, Biodiversity and Development Policies in

Africa by Daniel Juhn and Rosimeiry Portela

Commissioned by The World Bank Global Program on Sustainability (GPS) to inform discussions at the

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 September 6-7, 2023

Read more

NEWS AND BLOGS

GPS wins the World Bank’s 2023 Umbrella Program Award in the category of Transformation.



GPS was recognized for its transformative efforts to valuing and making nature count in decision-making in country policies and financial markets. The growing support in core implementing and other target countries for embedding nature into policies and programs is helping put natural capital on the balance sheet of countries and catalyzing scalable changes to address market and policy failures that lead to loss of nature and biodiversity. Valuation is key to addressing the underpricing of nature’s contributions to people and economies which accelerate depletion and degradation of natural capital and ecosystem services.

 

Announcement - Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM - Malaysia central bank) and the World Bank Announce Initiatives to Enable the Financial Sector to Support Nature-Positive Outcomes.

This represents a commitment to implement elements of the action plan in 2022’s WB-BNM report on Nature-related Financial Risks in Malaysia, namely facilitating adoption of TNFD reporting principles and catalyzing private finance for nature. This initiative builds on GPS work in Pillar 3.

Press release issued by BNM


Financial Times Article: Why nature’s future underpins the future of business

The article uses the results from the GPS study on the Economic Case for Nature which was also published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a prestigious journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS).

Read the article (paywall)


Commentary: Coping with climate shocks: Ecosystems versus economic systems

by Cem Karayalcin and Harun Onder

Read more


Feature Story

Strengthening the Capacity for Measuring and Valuing Natural Capital in Ghana

Read more


Blog

Three priorities to turn natural capital into wealth for the people of the Congo Basin

by Cheick Fantamady Kanté, October 26, 2023

Read more

This newsletter is published by the GPS Communications Team

We welcome your submissions of news, events, and publications at [email protected]