Botswana leads Africa on Natural Capital Accounting (NCA) and the country recognises the impact of natural heritage in terms of the social and economic well-being of the nation.
Permanent secretary in the Ministry of Minerals, Energy and Water Resources, Mr Kgomotso Abi said this at the high level sensitisation breakfast meeting on WAVES in Gaborone on February 10 .
WAVES is a global partnership that aims to mainstream natural capital in development planning and national economic accounts in support of sustainable development.
“We take pride in the way we’ve managed our natural capital. Of course people know about our diamond, copper and tourism. So, as a country, really it makes a lot of sense for us to be in the lead in terms of Wealth Accounting and the Valuation of Ecosystem Services (WAVES),” he added.
Mr Abi said recognising the effort that Botswana had done so far in terms of WAVES, the NCA in Botswana “is led from the very top. It is something that has been approved by cabinet. It’s something that our President Lt Gen. Seretse Khama Ian Khama drives with passion.”
Natural Capacity Accounting, Mr Abi said helps to bring together information on how natural resources were contributing to the economy, information on natural capital stocks and flows, uses and users, scarcities and potentials to help improve development decisions. Thus Botswana, Mr Abi said was very much alive to the need for NCA, adding that WAVES was one of the initiatives in that effort.
This, he said was also why in 2012 the country hosted the Gaborone Declaration on Sustainability for Africa and the subsequent one in 2013, adding that Botswana must be alive to NCA, because of its heavy dependence on natural resources, climate change and land productivity deterioration.
These three factors, Mr Abi said, “Should actually focus our minds to say we cannot just go on as business as usual, something must change and that’s where now NCA and the WAVES programme that we are currently pursuing came in to assist us.
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