13 January 2015: The Wealth Accounting and the Valuation of Ecosystem Services (WAVES) partnership has released its January 2015 newsletter, which features a workshop towards the first regional community of practice (CoP) on Natural Capital Accounting (NCA) in Latin America. Other items include a new programme for the development of international guidelines for ecosystem accounting, a World Bank mission to Colombia and upcoming workshops in the Botswana, Turkey and the Philippines.

Groundwork for a Latin American CoP was the subject of a WAVES regional workshop on NCA and water accounts held in Costa Rica from 17-19 December 2014. The event, co-organized with Costa Rica’s Central Bank, and attended by the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and 9 WAVES partner and core implementing countries, paves the way for the preparation and subsequent 2016 implementation of a CoP roadmap and continued South-South learning exchange for NCA.

The newsletter also highlights the Ecosystem Service Accounting for Development (ESAforD) programme, a four-year research collaboration between the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA), WAVES partnership and seven Environment for Development (EfD) Centers in China, Chile, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa and Tanzania. An accompanying interview with Jessica Alvsilver, an environmental economist with SEPA, offers an overview of how the programme aims to standardize the international guidelines within the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) framework.

A second interview with WAVES-Colombia coordinator, Henry Alterio, describes a recent World Bank mission to Colombia, intended to foster expert exchange and learning to advance forest and water accounting in the country.

Finally, the newsletter presents a number of forthcoming events, namely: trainings in Botswana on water, mineral, macroeconomic indicators and energy accounts; a workshop in Turkey on forest and water accounts; and the first WAVES knowledge exchange on ecosystem accounting in the Philippines. [WAVES Newsletter Issue 23, January 2015] [EfD Press Release on ESAforD] [WAVES Interview on ESAforD] [WAVES Interview on World Bank mission to Colombia]