We have some good news! We are excited to welcome Egypt and Morocco as Core Implementing Countries (CICs). In addition, Targeted Technical Assistance for select accounts and valuation will be given to Nepal, Madagascar, and the West Africa Coastal Areas Management Program (WACA) countries. This means we are now working with eight CICs and look forward to sharing progress as these countries kickstart work. 

Another significant development is from Rwanda where the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning has taken on the work on natural capital accounts from the Ministry of Environment. A nine-member unit will be housed within the macroeconomics division of the Ministry of Finance that is responsible for national planning and resource allocation. With this, we have moved a step further toward a key objective of the WAVES program to institutionalize accounts. 

In other work, momentum is building up on using the System for Environmental-Economic Accounts (SEEA) as a framework for measuring post-2020 targets for biodiversity to be launched at COP15 in China. Our partner, UNSD held a joint workshop with the W orld Conservation Monitoring Centre  in Cambridge, UK to discuss how systematic ways of measuring natural capital could be useful in designing and monitoring targets. The World Bank will contribute to this by leveraging the Bank's work on measuring natural capital and by collaborating with selected parties to the CBD, to ensure that the work will inform the process leading up to the China COP.

Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) will be one such policy option to encourage countries and forest communities to protect forests. You can read a blog by a World Bank Senior Economist on an impact evaluation study that found that Mexico's PES program has reduced deforestation in high risk areas.

The WAVES Team