Inception Mission in South Africa - Natural Capital Accounting and Valuation of Ecosystem Services
On 20-21 September 2017, Statistics South Africa (STATS SA) hosted the first high-level stakeholder consultation meeting for the project, Natural Capital Accounting and Valuation of Ecosystem Services in South Africa. The meeting served as an event to launch the project ant to reach out to national and local authorities and other relevant stakeholders from civil society and the private sector.
The project, funded by the European Union, aims at assisting South Africa to advance the knowledge agenda on environmental and ecosystem accounting, initiate pilot testing of the SEEA Experimental Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA-EEA), ecosystem valuation and macro-economic analysis with a view to improving the management of natural biotic resources, ecosystems and their services at the national level and mainstreaming biodiversity and ecosystems in national level policy-planning and implementation.
The meeting, hosted by STATS SA in Pretoria, convened over 40 participants from a wide range of organizations and national government agencies and local authorities who discussed the implementation of the project in South Africa and laid the foundations for a future work programme and compilation of selected environmental-economic accounts.
The meeting was opened by Michael Manamela, Acting Deputy Director-General of Economic Statistics. Opening remarks were also made by Bart van Uythem, Head of Economics and Infrastructure on the Gauteng Economic Indaba of the Delegation of the European Union to South Africa, Ivo Havinga, Assistant Director of Economics Statistics of United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), and Moshibudi Rampedi, CEO of the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI).
STATS SA has been a key partner in advancing environmental-economic accounting and was also involved with SANBI and in the preceding project “Advancing Natural Capital Accounting” also led by UNSD, UN Environment and the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD). Within South Africa, STATS SA and SANBI will continue to work in partnership with the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) and other institutions that were present in this meeting.