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Nigeria Natural Capital Accounting Compilation of Pilot Ecosystem Accounts for Nasarawa and Kaduna States

Keywords: Natural Capital Accounting, SEEA EA, Ecosystem Service, Africa NCA, Nigeria NCA

Author(s): Alessio Bulckaen, Caterina Gilli, Matias Piaggio, Drita Drade

Date: 2024-12-11

Issue: PB 2024-02

  Download this Policy Briefings (25 MB.)


The primary objective of this initiative was to develop ecosystem services accounts for two pilot states in Ni-geria, according to the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA-EA). The SEEA-EA is the international statistical standard for natural capital accounting and constitutes an in-tegrated and comprehensive statistical framework for organizing data about natural resources, including the services provided by ecosystems. The ecosystem services accounts were compiled using the ARIES (Ar-tificial Intelligence for Environment and Sustainability) for SEEA1. This innovative solution, a collaborative creation by BC3 (Basque Centre for Climate Change), UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme), and UNSD (United Nations Statistical Division), facilitates the assembly of data and information based on revised and endorsed scientific knowledge, to compile accounts consistent with the standard, and is acces-sible via the UN Global Platform2.
ARIES for SEEA is the open, free and user-friendly modelling platform used to obtain ecosystem accoun-ts. Compared to other approaches to environmental assessment, it has the advantage that the results of analyses can be easily adapted to different geographic, temporal and methodological contexts so that the results of a specific project can be easily scaled and reapplied. This is important to facilitate the compila-tion of accounts in the future. Whenever new information is made available in ARIES, the accounts can be recompiled for other accounting areas (e.g. other states) or different years, with minimal effort. Moreover, should the underlying data change significantly (e.g. a time series of local data is developed by the country), ARIES can be used to re-assess previous estimates based on the new information made available. This pro-vides an alternative to a consistent compilation and revision of Ecosystem Service (ES) accounts.
In pursuit of enhancing proficiency with the ARIES for SEEA application and the broader process of ecosy-stem accounts compilation, an in-person workshop was organized in Abuja from November 8th to 10th, 2023. The workshop provided a blend of theoretical and practical presentations covering ecosystem ac-counting, semantic and environmental modelling, and explained how the artificial intelligence (AI) engine which powers the analyses is based on human inputs. For this reason, the input provided by the TWG is essential in the production of the accounts. Practical sessions were dedicated to employing the ARIES for SEEA application in generating accounts.
In response to the attendees’ feedback, the training’s emphasis was shifted towards incorporating local data into the accounts. This adjustment highlighted the strong desire and necessity among the National Statistical Bureau (NBS), the pilot state offices, and other federal agencies engaged in the project to learn the methodologies required for independent account production.
The final result of this process was the adaptation of the global model to include specific local data avai-lable, which allowed the creation of the first comprehensive Ecosystem Accounts for Kaduna and Nasa-rawa states, with a particular focus on Ecosystem Services. The short time and resources available for the project limited the outputs that could be feasibly produced. Nevertheless, this achievement marks a significant step forward in the practical application of environmental-economic accounting within Nigeria, offering a template for future efforts to integrate environmental considerations into national and regional planning and policy-making processes, and show how significant results can be achieved under limited re-sources when leveraging on interoperable models and data available from the United Nations Sector Hub.

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