Building on the Economics of Biodiversity: the Dasgupta Review, the programme aims to support countries to integrate nature into the decision-making processes of partner countries’ finance and planning ministries, through the development and adoption of country-specific actions across the whole of the economy.

Challenge

The global economy and human well-being are heavily dependent on nature, and the ecosystem services provided by nature stocks that underpin them. These include food production, clean water, pollination, climate regulation, and biodiversity. Recent analysis shows that over half of the world’s GDP, equivalent to approximately $58 trillion, is either moderately or highly dependent on nature and its services.

Despite its fundamental role, natural capital has been heavily depleted, as has the biodiversity that underpins it, in favour of human and produced capital. It is widely recognised that the failure to address environmental degradation and the depletion of natural capital result from historic institutional and governance failures that prevent us from taking full account of the economic value of nature.

Fundamental and systemic reforms are needed to tilt financial incentives away from nature’s destruction towards its protection and restoration, but more effort is needed to champion them in boardrooms and finance ministries.

Insight

To address this, the NTSP aims to make a compelling case for a transition to a development model where development reflects the reality that we i.e. economies, society, are embedded in Nature; not external to it. By engaging directly with finance and planning ministries, the NTSP supports partner countries to understand the interactions of natural capital and their economies, and the implications of current economic development paths for nature and economic development.

This includes the development of scenarios that identify alternative nature-positive development pathways which embed economies in nature i.e. where development preserves and enhances natural capital and the wealth and health of future generations, while supporting efforts to tackle climate change.  

The NTSP brings together partner country expertise and political leadership with international research partners and policy makers.

Analysis carried out by the programme ascertained that in Ecuador 34% of GDP is generated by sectors with moderate to very high direct dependence on nature, and this rises to 48% in Colombia and 60% in Ghana. Such dependency is not limited to traditionally nature-reliant sectors such as agriculture, and extends to other key economic areas, such as manufacturing. This information now features prominently in some of the country’s key policy documents and strategies.

Collaboration

The project brings together expertise from the Alexander von Humboldt Biological Resources Research Institute, the Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad (INABIO), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the University of Minnesota, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the Centre for Biodiversity Conservation Research (CBCR).