Nena Stoiljkovic, Vice President, Business Advisory Services, IFC with Johann N. Schneider-Amman, Swiss Minister of Economic Affairs, Education and Research and Rachel Kyte, Vice President, Sustainable Development Network of the World Bank

 

The Government of Switzerland has become the newest donor to the WAVES global partnership.

The $5 million contribution from the Government of Switzerland will be split evenly to support two complementary initiatives within the World Bank and IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, over a three-year period. The funds will go toward efforts to incorporate the value of natural resources in public and private sector decision-making.

The signing ceremony on the sidelines of the World Bank Group-IMF Spring Meetings was attended by Johann N. Schneider-Amman, Swiss Minister of Economic Affairs, Education and Research, Switzerland, as well as Rachel Kyte, Vice President, Sustainable Development, World Bank, and Nena Stoiljkovic, Vice President, Business Advisory Services, IFC.

The World Bank is supporting countries to mainstream natural capital into national accounts and development planning through a global partnership called WAVES (Wealth Accounting and the Valuation of Ecosystem Services).

IFC  will use the funds to help companies in key economic sectors identify how to use natural resources in the most efficient and sustainable manner.

Other donors to WAVES include Norway, United Kingdom, France, Australia, Canada, Germany Denmark, The Netherlands and the European Commission.

An unprecedented number of countries have become energized and committed to undertaking NCA. Last week, more than 35 ministers, vice-ministers and senior officials of finance, development and environment came together for a High-level Ministerial Dialogue on NCA on April 18 just ahead of the Spring Meetings to make strong statements in support of scaling-up work on valuing nature and the important role NCA can play in the post-2015 development agenda.

At the Rio+20 summit last June 62 new countries and more than 90 companies signed up to support natural capital accounting. Earlier this month Egypt, Lebanon and Morocco expressed interest in order to encourage green growth, poverty reduction and job creation.