26 June 2014: Turkey has become the 70th participating country partner of the Wealth Accounting and the Valuation of Ecosystem Services (WAVES) Partnership, while two of the Partnership’s eight core implementing countries, Guatemala and Indonesia, have advanced natural capital accounting (NCA) in consultation with the initiative.

Turkey joined the Partnership after signing the Communiqué on Natural Capital Accounting, a statement reaffirming country commitments to work in partnership to develop institutional arrangements, science-based methodologies, and pilot initiatives for NCA and ecosystem accounting.

Guatemala will expand its NCA to agriculture, in addition to its current accounts for forests, water and energy, making it the first WAVES country to pursue NCA to inform food security policy, which is a priority area in the country’s National Plan. Indonesia held discussions on the scope of its WAVES programme during a WAVES Scoping Mission that convened at the end of May. Indonesia’s WAVES workplan is likely to include: accounts for land and water; macroeconomic indicators; an updated system for constructing accounts; policy analysis; and capacity building.

Also, participants at the second official meeting of the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF), which is convening from 30 June-8 July 2014, heard a presentation on NCA and its relevance for monitoring and implementing the goals of the post-2015 agenda. In a presentation delivered to representatives from over 80 countries and 20 UN agencies, Valerie Hickey, World Bank, stated that NCA offered measurable and meaningful indicators needed to achieve the 2015 targets, adding that “NCA is one tool that can help make sure we are not making progress against one SDG by liquidating another.” [WAVES Press Release on Turkey] [WAVES Press Release on Guatemala] [WAVES Webpage for Indonesia] [WAVES Press Release on NCA for Post-2015 Agenda] [IISD RS coverage of World Bank presentation during HLPF]