Regional Training Workshop on the SEEA EA for Asia and the Pacific

On 5-8 June 2023, UNSD and the UN Statistical Institute for Asia and the Pacific (UNSIAP), with the support of the Philippine Statistics Authority, held the Regional Training Workshop on the SEEA Ecosystem Accounting for Asia and the Pacific in Manila. Nearly 50 participants from 12 countries attended the workshop, which took place under the Development Account project, “Environmental-Economic Accounting for Evidence-Based Policy in Africa and Asia”, which aims to address the technical and institutional barriers to the establishment of routinely produced environmental-economic accounts at the national level by national statistical offices.

The workshop is the first in-person workshop in the region which focuses on the SEEA Ecosystem Accounting after its adoption in 2021. Participants from both national statistical offices and line ministries attended the workshop, which focused both on the technical/conceptual aspects of the SEEA Ecosystem Accounting Framework as well as its uses for policy (e.g. recently adopted post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework). The workshop included sessions dedicated to the core accounts of the SEEA Ecosystem Accounting, hands-on compilation exercises, a geospatial data assessment, good practices in dissemination and sharing country experiences. In particular, participants from the Philippines, Nepal, Indonesia and India shared their experiences in compiling land and/or ecosystem accounts.

The workshop concluded with a discussion on how countries would move forward with SEEA Ecosystem Accounting implementation when they returned home. Meeting presentations and exercises can be found on the event page here.