 Those four sessions will be moderated by distinguished moderators, and I will be your facilitator during this great Das Gupta review on economics of biodiversity, Africa consultation and presentation of this interim report. My name is Peter Odenko. I'm the head of climate finance and green economy unit at the national treasury and planning in the great republic of Kenya. So team, honorable colleagues, welcome and let me take this opportunity to call upon my able colleague who has also been with us during all this time, Dr. Philip Osano, acting director Stockholm environment Institute to take the floor. Dr. Phillips. Thank you. Thank you so much, Peter. I would like to welcome everyone to this event. We are starting the first session. The first session has two parts to it. The first part would be a presentation by Professor Pat Das Gupta, who's going to be introduced to us shortly. And after we'll have reactions and responses from a panel of six distinguished experts that we've lined up in order to help us really delve deep into the interim report. So without wasting much time, I would first of all invite Sandy Shad with the deputy director and head of the economics of biodiversity review team at Hamagestis Treasury in the UK to introduce Professor Pat Das Gupta who will immediately start with this presentation and thereafter I'll come back and introduce the panelists and request them to start their interventions. So Sandy, over to you please. Wonderful. Thank you, Peter, for the introduction, sorry, Philip, for the introduction. So thank you also to the Kenyon National Treasury and the Stockholm Environment Institute for convening today's discussion. It's a huge pleasure to be joining you all today to hear your perspectives on the topic of the economics of biodiversity. Last year, the UK Treasury, the UK's Economic and Finance Ministry, invited Professor Pat Das Gupta to undertake an independent and global review into this hugely important topic. The review is exploring the sustainability of our engagements with nature through an economic lens, what we take from it, how we transform what we take from it and return to it, why we've disrupted nature's processes and what we must do differently to enhance our collective wealth and well-being and that of our descendants. It strikes me that our discussion today cannot be more relevant. COVID-19 has brought in to start relief the economic and health consequences of environmental degradation and the need to do things differently. So it's a privilege and a pleasure for my team and me to be supported, Professor Das Gupta, with his work. Our team is based at the UK's Treasury. We comprise of analysts, scientists and policy officials from across government reflecting the complexity of issues the review is grappling with and our interim report was published in April. This sets out the main economic and scientific concepts which will underpin the final report and Professor Das Gupta will share his insights on these concepts shortly. As a global review, the professor and the team are keenly aware of the importance of ensuring the review benefits from experiences and expertise from across the globe. So I strongly welcome and look forward to today's discussion bringing together reactions and perspectives from across sub-Saharan Africa. Our insights today will inform our thinking ahead of publishing the final report in the autumn. I should stress the review is independent, so everything you hear from the professor or me today should not be taken to be the UK government's view. Of course, the government will want to respond to a review once we've published. So let me introduce Professor Das Gupta. He is the Frank Ramsey Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of both the British Academy and the Royal Society. In 2002, Professor Das Gupta was named Knight Bachelor by the Queen for Services to Economics and he's the recipient of a plethora of prizes. His research interests have covered welfare and development economics, population environmental and resource economics, the economics of inter-nutrition and the economics of social capital. So there really is no one more qualified to be undertaking this review. Let me now hand over to the professor to present some of the reviews on core scientific and economic concepts and we very much will encourage participants to submit questions throughout the event as you think of them. You can use the email provided or the chat function in Zoom. Without further ado, let me hand over to you, Professor Das Gupta. Okay, right, I'm now unmuted. I have a voice. Well, thank you very much. Sandy was right. I have been working on related themes. What I thought was the economics of biodiversity for about 40 years. So I thought I was reasonably well qualified to prepare this review. But pretty quickly I realized it needed, economics needed a serious overhaul. This is not somebody speaking from the left field or the right field. I'm smack in the middle of economics. So I'm not diverting from my commitment to the way our forefathers in my subject have taught us to think about society, social problems, no matter where. It's not bad. It's that those of you and many of you have the economics background will have recognized that the practice doesn't speak to the problems of biodiversity in general. And it certainly doesn't speak to the lives that are led, as far as I can tell, in rural sub-Saharan Africa. It wasn't meant to be. It's highly urban. It's highly high-income country lensed subject. So over the months, in some deep sense, I've tried to even out that imbalance. And that has required a lot of work. It's not simply instructions for macroeconomic reasoning. Macroeconomic reasoning has to be embedded in our understanding of what households in even the poorest parts of our countries do, how they think, how they react to circumstances, the stresses of life. And unless it does that, then it's all useless anyway. So we've had to, in many ways, recover economic analysis in our review to meet the problem of biodiversity globally. As it appears locally, that's extremely important. The biosphere is an incredibly heterogeneous object entity. What is experienced by a rural household in Malawi is very different from what is experienced by a rural household in Ohio, USA, not to mention an urban household in Nairobi and an urban household in LA. These differences means that the review is not finger wagging. It is not designed to tell people what they should do. It cannot do that. There's no way any of us can do that, including people who are listening in at this workshop. What instead it does is something, I think, far more important. It tells us how we should think about our relationship with the biosphere. Recognizing our relationship differs from person to person, circumstance to circumstance, location to location. So it's really a grammar of thought rather than a guide of instructions. One of the first things I realized, and that came very naturally to me because I'm very committed, I suppose it's in my DNA, a Democrat, which is that unlike, for example, what you may expect in the economics of climate change, my review is not top-down instructions. I'm afraid even the Ministry of Finance in Kenya is a negligible object in the context of Kenyan society, as is the case in India. The Ministry of Finance in India is a small peg, minute peg, in the society that comprises India. That's extremely important. It's not only top-down exclusively. Of course, the government has a role, goes without saying. But we all think ourselves to be very important, and we must first of all get out of that thought. It's not even exclusively bottom up. The heterogeneity of the biosphere means that information and knowledge and general empathy must flow sideways as well across villages, across towns and villages, laterally, that is. So we have an institutional problem of massive importance to face, which is that a good set of institutions must encourage information flow in all directions, up, down, down, up, sideways, and so on. Now, in a way, of course, most all societies are connected that way, goes without saying, because we have evolved, and needs have ensured that information does flow. The question is, is there even a balance? And how that information should be packaged? That's where, of course, the economics comes in. The second realization I had was how much our subject is urban-based. We see the world through urban gaze, and yet biodiversity, for the most part, is in that large part of the earth, which is not urban. Hesitate to say it's rural, because so much of it, thank God, even now, is uninhabited, the forests, the wetlands. So, and yet, of course, we have an influence on what happens there. And the reason the economics of biodiversity is of the utmost importance is that we have really messed it up as a world community. And this is not an issue of blame game. The review is not pointing fingers at anybody. But the data are absolutely overwhelming. Globally, we have made a complete mess of our relationship with nature. So, OK, where do we go from here? First thing, first, each of the three points that I'll be making now are one sentence each, but they have profound implications for redirecting economics, which is what the review tries to do. First is that, unlike what you see in economic models, first of all, of course, most economic models don't have the environment, doesn't have the biosphere. We look at human capital and produce capital. The models that we work with in growth and development economics, mostly growth economics, doesn't have any biosphere in it. The models that finance ministries have are built on the theoretical models, don't forget that. And so if the theoretical models are faulty, then they filter down into the practical models that we use to interpret, not just forecast, but interpret what we are forecasting. So the first point is that humanity is embedded in nature. We're not external to it. That sounds very flaky. Some would say mystical, but it has huge implications for the way we model. And I will come to it in a question time, but this is not the point. This is not the place for technical details, but I just want to give you highlights. So we're embedded. And yet, we are part of it, of course. And just as we like to think that we are assets, we say our children are assets, so are we. Our children think we are assets. Nature is an asset as well. So it has to be incorporated in our accounting system, if nothing else. It has value, and yet, of course, in the market, most often it doesn't have a value. And the review is a pain to try and unearth the variety of reasons why institutions have failed to adequately acknowledge the value of natural resources of nature. And when I say the value, of course, that's at the highest global level you're sort of aggregating around. We're talking about being sensitive to the value that is attached to the local ecosystem by your compatriots in rural Africa or rural India or rural China. Because, of course, the action, biodiversity action, is in the non-urban areas. Now, we, of course, think it is the urban areas which are really at despair, goes that saying. We hear about crowding. We think about shanty towns and so forth. All that is horrible. No question about it. But do bear in mind the urban bias in that picture in order to alleviate that the demands made on the biosphere surely emanates from the urban areas, even in Africa, not to mention India or China. That for sure. But the impact is on the rural areas through the diffusion, nature's diffusion and the demands of products that we make for. So when there are, in the supply chain, errors are committed in not giving weight to the value of those who are harnessing the primary products, which are then sold, go to urban Africa, go to England, go to America, and so forth, we have serious misallocation. So nature is an asset. And we have to find a way in which to value the asset and treat the problem of biodiversity, the economics of biodiversity, as an asset management problem. Now, that sounds easy enough. You might say, well, environmental and resource economists have told us that they are assets. That's for sure. Remember, it's not that the review is trying to create new concepts at willy-nilly. We're going to make use of the concept and turn the economics around to be able to have a language, a grammar with which to see our relationship with the biosphere. The fourth point comes to the more macroeconomic reasoning that emanates from the emphasis I've given now up to now to the biosphere, the rural areas, if you like, the microcosm, which is that we have to change our asset management problem means that we need to measure economic success differently from the way it has been or is currently done. The most common measure of economic success, and there are good reasons for it. I'm not going to go into it. Although the review goes into it at great length, sympathetically, I should say, is GDP. It's weakness. GDP's weakness lies in the fact. For my purposes, never mind philosophical arguments. For our purposes here, its main weakness is that it doesn't include the depreciation of nature. It's gross domestic product, remember, not net. So you can have GDP rising even while you're eating into the biosphere. Worse, if you want to be technical about it, you can eat into the biosphere without anybody knowing, or please put it this way, the economic statistics not recording, but it will be recorded as growth in total factor productivity. So you'll say, gosh, we are doing extremely well. We are so clever. We are becoming more efficient in using our resources because total factor productivity has been growing at 5% let us say, just for the sake of argument. But it could be that 5% is due to the fact that you're mining the earth system, not just fossil fuels, but your ecosystems, mining the forest, and so forth. So the review relates microeconomic concerns at the village level, if you like, and the particularities of villages. And there's quite a number of chapters on norms of behavior as opposed to the law as a enforcing mechanism, as a guide to create the incentives for people to use resources to the macroeconomic, which is why the review is rather long. It has to create the thread which connects the single household to the macroeconomic model, which is being observed by the decision makers in the planning commission of the Ministry of Finance. And what we propose, and this is now beginning to be quite known, because the United Nations has taken this up in a big way, particularly United Nations Environment Programme in Nairobi. In several reports, three reports, 2012, 2014, and most recently, the Managi Kumar Report of 2018, is a concept of, is a notion of inclusive wealth. Inclusive because it includes natural capital, the biosphere, when ideally done, of course. Now remember, theoretically, all of this has to be tight, absolutely tight, so that there's no leakage anywhere, and nobody can say there's inconsistency in congruity or anything. Once you have that theoretical structure well defined, then you back off, because it can't be done. It can't be done because the data aren't there. Quite a part for anything is valuation is a problem. So we do, we recommend what is natural to all of us, which is we know what we want, but we can't do it, so we take shortcuts. But the virtue of knowing what you want is that you know what shortcuts you're making. Without that, you would be making ad hoc shortcuts, and they could be inconsistent with one another. And then suddenly you see outcomes, which you were not only not expecting, but a contrary to what you thought was going to happen. That's terrible, and that's been what's happening in our world because we've been misusing economics, using wrong indicators, thinking that we're doing extremely well, which we are in many ways. We live longer, we're better educated, we eat better, and so forth. All that's there, but we forget that we might be actually caving under by keeping it passing on a biosphere, which is in worse shape, less healthy state toward next generation. OK, so that's the setup. There is extensive discussion in the review of why we are in a mess. To give you a sense of that mess, what we have done is to think of the biosphere as a regenerative resource, an aggregate resource, which is churning out goods and services, many of which are silent, many of which are invisible, but we're still making use of them. And what you see in front of you is what we call the impact inequality, the unsustainable use of the biosphere. On the right-hand side is something that I've written as capital G is a function of capital S. Think of it as a forest, and S is the stock. Capital G is the net production of forest services. It's bounded. The economy is bounded. The forest is bounded. The biosphere is bounded. So G cannot just be expected to grow like anything. If you increase S in a pristine form, G will be zero. Net output will be zero. It will be birth and death of organisms, trees, and so forth. But of course, we are far from there. We are way up to the left, where S is small. We have reduced S. G is small. Nevertheless, on the left-hand side is our demand. So now you've got the language of economics, demand, and supply. So we've got this is all in flows. So the left-hand side is a flow. Annual demand, let's say, and the right-hand side is annual supply. And want you to stretch your imagination and think of the entire biosphere as a great fishery or a great forest, producing stuff that we then use for our purposes, we being humanity. On the left-hand side is humanity's demand. And we have broken up that demand into three components, three factors, N, Y, and alpha. The numerator, N times Y, what we observe, what we can measure, is the goods and services we have produced annually. That's called that GDP. We haven't got anything better. So as an approximation, let us suppose global GDP is the true market value of our activities. It measures our human activities. Alpha is the efficiency with which we transform nature's gift to us into those activities. Say pollination service, which we convert into agricultural output, which, of course, goes into the numerator. Total global demand is, by definition, it's total population. I'm looking at an aggregate figure here now. Total population times average demand, average GDP, let's say. So we have three parameters to work with. And of course, the review goes deep into the engines of the relationship between N, Y, and alpha. They're not independent of each other. If you perturb either any of them, you perturb the others. And yet, of course, you don't perturb them. We perturb something else much deeper. These are manifestation. These are epiphenomena, capital N, capital Y, and alpha. The real phenomena is the incentives we have, our motivations, what we like to do, and so forth, the public policies, and so forth. So I want to give you the next five minutes before I conclude. I want to give you a sense of these three parameters, starting with alpha. I won't give you any figures for alpha. What we have done is to try and tease out from macroeconomic data, as it's possible to get these days, to estimate how alpha has been changing over time. Alpha is, remember, a parameter, an efficiency parameter. It measures, in some aggregate sense, the efficiency with which we transform goods and services and then Mother Nature gives us into our final product. So the higher the alpha, the more efficient we are. So of course, the left-hand side, other things being equal, the higher the alpha, the left-hand side is reduced. And so therefore, you can see that that efficiency parameter may be one policy variable, policy type. And of course, in the economics of climate change, that's the only policy target that's been used. That is methods of reducing carbon emissions. So moving from carbon-intensive production technology for an energy to non-carbon based is what alpha, it rise of alpha means. In the economics of biodiversity, unfortunately, alpha is a purile. In fact, if anything, technological change has been disastrous for the biosphere. Again, there are good reasons why it has been. It's been disastrous in a global sense because entrepreneurs have absolutely no incentive to create technologies which conserve or protect the biosphere. Remember, the biosphere is mostly free, market failure, institutional failure. So if it's free, why would we wish to economize on it? Go for more. That might explain our enormous development in fishing vessels in the technology of fisheries, technology of removing forests for clearing forests which couldn't have been done 150 years ago, even. So we have to look at n and y. And I want first to look at y, small y. And may I have the next slide, please? I've just done this yesterday with my colleagues, Helpe and Perum, who is, I think, with us. I hope he is. He's constructed this table for us. And here, we've used the World Bank's classification of high income upper middle, lower middle, and low income countries. They're four-way classification. On the first column of numbers, you've got GDP in purchasing parity at 2017 prices. It was published in 2019 in trillion dollars. High income countries in aggregate is $61.7 trillion PPP. And the share of global income in the high income countries is 47%. The percentage share of global population is 16%. So this is another way of expressing the inequality, the international inequality crop. But it does it in my judgment in a way which speaks to the economics of biodiversity. In contrast, if you look at low income countries, that doesn't include the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. It includes a few in some island countries and a few in South Asia. But much of sub-Saharan Africa is in that group, low income. GDPP is $1.6 trillion. The percentage share is 1%. Share of global population is 9%. So you can see I'm interested in this, highlighting this, because it is absolutely, should be made transparent that Africa cannot be held remotely responsible for the mess we are in today. And the mess is, if I can have the first slide again, please, and the mess is in the inequality NY upon alpha as greater than G of S. Greater means demand exceed supply, which means, of course, that S is being drawn down. And the more S gets drawn down, small G drops. Meanwhile, NY upon L, if alpha increases, the gap between demand and supply increases. So you can see we are in a serious mess. If we ignore the economics of biodiversity. Well, how big is this gap? By some estimates, these are all crude, by the way. These numbers are terribly crude. But you know, beggars can't be choosers. Because nobody has done this kind of exercise, I'm not at all embarrassed. My team is actually quite triumphant that this is crude, but it's damn site better than zero. Is the one set of exercises, the ratio between the left-hand side and the right-hand side is about 1.7 now. Which, of course, in colorful prose is described as we living on 1.7 Earths. You may have heard that expression, where we need 1.7 Earths in order to be able to do what we are doing on a sustainable basis. Sustainability would mean, of course, that S remains at least constant, if not increasing. Declining S means we're not in a sustainable path. So we even have now a language in which to talk about sustainable development, rather than in terms of sustainable development goals, which were never screened for sustainability, by the way. If you look at the sustainable development goals, there's no mention as to whether it's actually even if you realize them, whether they are sustainable. So first thing, as I say, this 1.7, let us just for the sake of argument, this huge gap between demand and supply that we are now currently, and the gap is increasing, is not the responsibility. It's been due to the past behavior of today's rich countries and current behavior of emerging countries, the nations which want to lift themselves off. OK, may I have the third? But unfortunately, the choices that Africa, if I may be allowed to use a heterogeneous, huge continent, subcontinent as one, which is a common practice. India is regarded as India. But it's got double digit languages, very different. I mean, it's a natural thing to do if you do macroeconomics. But of course, within it, you need to peer into it and then see the heterogeneity and the stresses that societies face. The future looks not so good. In fact, the challenges that African societies face is what's forthcoming. By the even population divisions, they're the ones whose numbers we all use, just as we use World Bank. There are arrival numbers. But they are tried and tested. Their current projection is that in 2100, which is there, is that Sub-Saharan Africa's population will grow to nearly 3.8 billion, which is almost 3 billion more than what it is today. That is going to cause challenges, as we like to say today. Serious challenges. And it's not as though the point is really to look at the future. That's what we should be doing. Not about today, but tomorrow, day after. And these projections are made on assumptions regarding, obviously, many assumptions, hundreds of assumptions. It's been an ongoing projection that they've been making for 40 years. The institutions have been making 40 years. As you can see from 1950 to 2100, what an incredible difference it will be to the global population. It was about 2.5 billion. In 1950, the global population, Africa, was a tiny bit of it, 100, the mean, the average projection. It's a 10.9 billion. We are at the moment 7.7 billion. And then Sub-Saharan Africa has a large chunk here. We're looking at now, the reason I delved into this is, of course, to peer into the story of the household, the needs of women, since they bear the brunt burden of reproduction, as to what their needs are and how their needs for family planning are being met. And of course, one of the sad things is, and it's all tanges together, is that most countries don't take family planning seriously. And yet, allegedly, they are very vociferous in acknowledging women's rights, that their needs need to be met, that they are in many, many situations, many societies, if you like, not the dominant decision makers, not just at the household, but stemming down from what are often male-dominated decision-making process. I'm not saying anything new here, but it's, to me, these data, which I've now tried to put together in the review as a conceptual whole, where we don't talk about one thing, but talk about others, kind of drawing room nicety. That's not correct. If we care about the world, we care about the biosphere, and if we care about the most downtrodden person in our society, then we need to look at all the factors, the factors which you can identify as being potent in realizing the outcome that we observe. So the review takes family planning very seriously, because I personally feel very strongly, and I've always felt very strongly, that women must be respected, taken on completely on a par with everybody else. We say one thing, we do another. That's the reason why I'm pointing this out. These are problems that African society will face, and the leadership has to come from, at one level, my thought is that it'll come from government decision makers, and surely they should be. But as I've been composing the review, I've come increasingly to the opinion that even governments don't matter, what matters is the citizen, and it is when the citizen recognizes the economic system that in which he or she is placed, is working against her legitimate interests, then he or she, the citizen, will say, enough, we want to be heard, we want to protect our neighborhood, the animals around us, the plants around us, and we can't have suddenly people coming in and burning it or taking away. Now this happens in some ways everywhere, in other continents too, and we read about them, but that's the tone of the review. It is not pointing fingers at anybody. It's not telling anybody what to do. It's trying to provide a grammar with which to understand ourselves, which includes, of course, our place in the biosphere. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you so much, Professor Dasgupta. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you for that. Yeah, so thank you so much, Professor Dasgupta, for this wonderful presentation about the Interim Reports. As part of the program, we've actually asked a panel of six distinguished experts from Africa, thought leaders, and we would like them to respond to some of the issues you raised in your presentation, of course, also making reference to the report, both in terms of the conceptual issues, but most importantly, also in terms of where do we go next. So the first, my pleasure to introduce our first respondent, Dr. Julius Muya. Dr. Muya is the Principal Secretary at the National Treasury in Kenya. He has a PhD in finance. He has also quite a good experience, long-term experience in the private sector, both in the UK and Kenya, and I must say that I appreciate Dr. Muya for also his leadership, because when I first introduced this idea to have an African consultation and invited the Kenya National Treasury, it was very open to this possibility, and that's why we're here today. So Dr. Muya, you do have five minutes. Please, the floor is yours to give your response to Professor Dasgupta's presentation and the Interim Reports. Thank you. Good afternoon. Good morning everyone. I sincerely do appreciate the opportunity to share some words and some thoughts in the next five minutes. First, actually listening to Professor Dasgupta, I got the impression about systems theory, I mean reminding my days in the university about some of the relationships that sometimes we take for granted. And so I want to say thank you, Prof, for bringing that inclusivity in terms of how we are looking at the whole area of economics. Now, within the five minutes, let me just go very quickly and say in Kenya we have actually been looking at this area of climate change, which in a way you would say is subset within the biodiversity that we are discussing, and the National Treasury, which is the ministry where I work, has actually been championing areas where we've been looking at inclusive green investment in the country, where we have focused on policies, structural issues, looking at investment innovations, and here is just looking at across the equal economy, the financial sector included, and also asking ourselves pertinent questions about capital flows and sustainable development, and how all these things link together. But listening to Prof, I can see a lot of threads that can be useful in the many things that we have been doing in Kenya. Obviously, we've also been recognizing the fact that when you look at inclusive green investments, you would also have to address the issues of the environment, which Prof has talked a lot about, issues about social and governance considerations, and again asking ourselves the question about this one, how our green investment plans will support economic growth, but this is in the restricted area of defining growth in terms of GDP, but still actually still asking ourselves the question about how clean, how resilient, and how sustainable is that growth. And so for us, we have also been asking ourselves the pertinent questions about efficiency of use of resources, how to reduce pollution, and how to make sure that we mitigate the environmental challenges that we have in terms of damage to the environment. Obviously, we've also been grappling with a question about investments, how when you are looking at investments, we tend to focus a lot of times from the investor lens on the short term without looking at the broad interests of the society, and especially, and Prof has articulated this very well, the low income segment of the population, so I see what Prof is suggesting will help us actually be able to be more inclusive in the way we look at investments. We are also clear about the benefits that we can get from inclusive investments, and in this case, we also cognizant of the fact that Kenya being a low-middle income economy, we have been depending a lot on nature in terms of nature being the source of a lot of things that we do, and looking at the analysis and the modeling that has been presented today. There is a lot of thought that we can also engage in, in looking at how we can diversify and make sure that our economy is not too dependent on natural resources, without taking into account whether we are reducing the biodiversity as a result of growth. Obviously, our agriculture is one area where we need to ask ourselves how do we do our agriculture in this area of whether we are regenerating nature or increasing the biodiversity within our environment. We've also been doing a lot of things on the area of climate change and Kenya again being in the tropics, we have also been worried about issues about lower crop production, lower yields in terms of livestock, the question about forest fires, how do you account for them, how do you deal with the damage to fisheries as a result of our production processes and our distribution processes, and how do we then account for reduction in hydropower generation because of the climate change and biodiversity related issues. Obviously, industrial production and the questions about reduction of water supply because of the way we engage in our economics and development is an area that we have also been thinking about, but I like the equation that was presented because it can help us put some maths and some numbers into our worries. Now some of the achievements quickly that I can share is that we have been working very closely with other stakeholders as the State Department for the Treasury and Planning to make sure that we end up with fairly cohesive and market-wide policies and regulations and I can just mention a few here. Obviously they are not as deep prof as they've developed, but this is because most of the drive and initiative has been informed by the climate change undertakings in terms of our national climate change and finance policies, our green economy, and strategic implementation plans. We've got our national determined contribution plans and national climate action plans. There are a lot of things that are institutional and regulatory and legal nature where Kenya has invested a lot, but I would think in order for us then to move forward in a fairly inclusive and comprehensive framework using the frameworks that have been presented by a professor here. There's a lot that now we can do to amplify what we have been focusing on in terms of climate related issues. We are also looking at green finance principles. We are involving the banking sector, we're looking at raising a green sovereign bond later this year and looking to make sure that we address the gaps that could be there in terms of existing environmental and social recognition. So there's a whole retinue of things that we can learn and extract from the presentation made by Prof today. Now my final comment is in terms of the challenges that we have seen within our limited framework of looking at the climate change and related nature issues. One of them of course is the question about short termness where success is measured in terms of financial short term parameters and a lot of times we tend to ignore the long term economic value which can be created when you look at major stakeholders and you look at issues outside the finance parameter. Obviously our institutional investors have been fairly fragmented and so I think looking at the framework that Professor has presented is a basis that we can also see how we can structure and get them to work in a more organized way so that we can be able to bring them up to scale. The other thing that of course learning is continuous and we tend to see the question about our experience in this area is limited and we are learning as we are running and so our policies our plans our regulatory frameworks they stand to benefit from inputs the like that we have had from Professor. But one of the last things that I just want to say for my education background looking at the whole area of risk return frameworks as advanced by Harry Marco is a long long way back and the question about how economics is informing development and how we can bring in other parameters that are not currently measured is quite exciting and I would say what Professor has presented could be regarded as a groundbreaking framework that will participate in so that we can see how we can bring it up to scale and apply it in the country and in the region. I complete my submission and thank you for that opportunity to make my presentation. Thank you. Thank you so much Dr. Muya we really appreciate you sharing with us the groundbreaking work that you are doing at the National Treasure in Kenya. I'll quickly move over very fast to our second respondent Wanjira Matai is the Vice President and Regional Director for Africa at the World Resource Institute. She's also the chair of the Wangari Matai Foundation of course the foundation created in memory of late mother Nobel Prize winner Wangari Matai. So Wanjira over to you please and you have five minutes. Thank you very much and Dr. Muya it's great to to hear your interventions as well. Dr. Dasgupta delighted to hear you and to read this report. I think one of the things that was exciting is definitely the fact that you highlight that investing in nature actually results in a more positive result than was currently accounted for and that obviously is because of how we mismanage the world's natural capital today. There are obviously a number of different economic opinions I love your use of grammars of thought about the benefits of biodiversity and this review is unique because it sees humanity as an integral part of the biosphere and not just being external and then you mentioned dipping into the biosphere for goods and services and I just love that graphic. I have not heard much opposition at all to people understanding the value of biodiversity. Actually in your words we recognize that biodiversity is essential characteristic of nature and we are playing an important role in its provision of ecosystem services to us but where I get the sense that we are stuck and actually we don't quite believe or are willing to act is in the cost and risks associated with biodiversity loss. That's where I don't seem to perceive why we don't see that risk and act accordingly. After all the the greater generation is incensed with the generations in charge because we don't seem to get it as far as their consent house is on fire and we just don't seem to understand but I'm also personally challenged by our collective inertia around what we already know Africa is faced with unacceptable levels of poverty sluggish agricultural productivity. I read recently from the African Development Bank that we are 56% productivity in Africa is 56% below the global average yet agriculture remains our largest employer and certainly our largest driver of economic prosperity and potentially could be even greater. We have a fast degrading and pressurized ecosystems and natural resources. The fastest urbanizing region in the world and our youth population the median age of Africans today 19 years old and in many countries 70% of them under the age of 35. We've got to find a way to deliver hope and economic transformation to these young people and ensure that that transformation is real for them and in many ways for us today this is anchored in our long-term strategies our NDCs as Dr. Moya mentioned but nature remains the single most important source in Africa through agriculture food production we know that that's where our solution lies. I love the Food and Land Use Coalition because it always reminds us that getting the food system right is central to a resilient recovery across the world and it will create potential for millions of new jobs less hunger greater food security better management of key resources soil water forest oceans and I know Dr. Dasgupta that poverty in many ways eliminating poverty is a huge driving force of this work and so we have to think of this that we have to be ambitious and the the truth of the matter is for many of us in Africa we do have ambitious development roadmaps across the continent we must ensure however that those roadmaps are anchored on investment plans that also signal where we want to invest and that our investments are aligned to these ambitions for clean resilient green futures. I look forward to the final reports that to me and the actions that we must take to protect and enhance biodiversity and economic prosperity but there are two areas where I think some work is still needed the first one is in the political economy as a Kenyan on the panel it is really nice to see Dr. Julius Muir and Peter Odengo on the panel because the truth of the matter is their experience in planning vision 2030 and in envisioning the new climate economy across our country and the same in many countries where we work I say this because they are the leaders and leaders like them who hold the key to a green clean low carbon resilient future and the truth is if we do not anchor these in the planning processes and begin to understand the intrigues of our political economies we will not get anywhere even with the sort of knowledge we have we've got to create champions who create and build even more political capital and understand just how these decisions are made at a granular level so I think we need to essentially cement nature-based solutions and into our long-term strategies and send the right signals to investors that this is the direction that Africa wants to go until that happens we will just be talking so I'm delighted that my own country is doing that but we need to be the champions that help make that happen the second thing that I think is going to be really important here is behavior change the thing that COVID-19 underlines for all of us is that small changes in behavior wearing a mask washing our hands they are significantly important in creating human safety so modest changes that we make in our lifestyles as we reflect on what it means and the planet's fate will make a huge difference choosing an electric vehicle where possible investing in mass transit investing in inclusive infrastructure so that citizens have an option of not taking motorized transport and that they can walk or take non-motorized transport to move around cutting household food and waste and multiple other behavior change transformations that need to happen a lot of the transformation we are looking for requires many transformation in our lives at different levels and it is in all those levels national governments to create that change in behavior amongst all of us I'm inspired a lot by Andy Ratty Roy's recent statement in the Financial Times she wrote that historically pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew this is no different it is a portal it's a gateway between one world and the next we can choose to either walk through it dragging our cacuses of prejudice our hatred our data banks our dead ideas our dead rivers or we can walk through lightly with little luggage ready to reimagine this world and ready to fight for it we know what needs to be done so what's holding us back we have got to get around at least these two barriers to unlock the possibility of this important work that we're talking about today so I look forward to the final report Dr. Dasgupta and your team and thank you so much for sharing it and sharing it in the way that you did today and also look forward to the actions that we must take to protect and enhance biodiversity and economic prosperity thank you very much thank you thank you so much Juanjira very great insight and input and the like that you bring in the COVID-19 challenge and also like that you conclude poetically I think it's also good for us to think about poetry and just that this is just not more than science but we can move from the equations and complicated technical words to sort of like literature and and so on thank you so much Juanjira I move to our third respondent Ms. Alice Rueza the African Regional Director for WWF International Ms. Rueza is actually an economist by training with over 30 years of experience in the multilateral development sector having worked for conservation international UNDP and is also contributing also to the economics of ecosystems and biodiversity which is one of the reports that Dr. Dasgupta has referenced so over to you Alice and as you show please try to keep to five minutes we appreciate your support on this Alice thank you very much Philip thank you Professor Dasgupta and to the panelists who have eloquently talked about the challenges and the opportunities I too am very inspired by the report as an economist of course but also this way the imperative of forcing us to think about nature as an asset and to understand and explain the imbalance between humanity's needs and a model of economic prosperity that accounts for humanity's interaction and dependence of nature very valuable I'm glad Professor that you talk about women and family planning as a woman I see I see that education women's education and family planning as a huge game changer in this continent so I will start from where Juanjira left off which is why do we have this collective in Asia why we we know what the problems are but we are not acting on them and it brings me to the point of the human agency what is the human agency around this when we talk about the value of nature whose value is it I think professor you mentioned this very clearly you said that you know there's a difference between the urban and also the rural whose value when you when you sit in the rural area and you look at the cost of living with wildlife for example what does that really mean does it now become an asset if with this particular wildlife kills my families it's still an asset they are equal distribution of wealth and benefits that are derived from nature you know local communities do we really capture the dynamic and nuanced nature of biodiversity especially at a local level and the recognition I think professor talked about the recognition of local communities as frontline custodians of our natural resources and the costs and benefits of living with that and also as agents of change those champions that Juanjira talked about so this report even as much as it may be looking at a global level I believe we want to inspire these agents of change at a local level and therefore we would want this report to also speak to them in some way professor the second point for me is again very much related to COVID-19 we talk about nature as an asset but I also think it's important to position nature as a solution as a solution to everything we want to do going forward how can we use nature as a launchpad to fixing our food systems that we need to fix fixing our health I mean a lot of the solutions to health come from our nature our asset how can we make biodiversity relevant to the people whose behavior we need to change there is a reason why they are they continue to pollute there's a reason why we continue doing the things that you talked about Juanjira I think it's because somehow we are missing and that political economy message you said fits there very well right there right there so we need to think about that behavior change to to engender the behavior change we will need to make this nature relevant to those people I think you also capture very well in the report the systemic interdependencies the PS also talked about these the older crisis and silos at the same time it's it's it's health it's economic it's social it's environmental all of that is happening at the same time so how do we how do we deal with that how do we look at health but also look at food and look at the environment at the same time when we're in this system this upheaval so we need more robustness and I think we will need we will need this report to help us think through this robustness what are those choices that we can make that are flexible enough to take advantage of current opportunities but also keep an eye on the future because we do need to keep an eye on the future we'll need this multi-layered governance whether it's going to be at the public level at the local level at a landscape level and I like the fact that a lot of good new reports are coming out with this one health approach for us to look at to look simultaneously at environmental health at human health and also at animal health because I believe that that's an opportunity for us this integrated approach is something we have not done well and something we need to think about and the new social contract this is something that's coming out a lot again maybe related to the political economy but the social contract is extremely important the the COVID-19 has not caused but exposed all the issues that we've had before and the fact that we need to rebuild this social track the income inequality is very high this there is no denying the fact that this has been a problem for a while and professor you talked about citizens I think that citizen there's this empowered self-organization and getting our citizens to stand up in arms and be involved in the solutions going forward is going to be important and because of that we will need to have this report be able to speak to everyone and the way we communicate the way the way we people we help people internalize this message of nature as an asset will help create the ownership around the solutions that we are looking for not everybody will understand the alpha and all of that but I'm sure there's a way we can make this speak to everyone because communication will be extremely important and me the last point I want to I want to make is the work that we ourselves are doing with the African Development Bank and a few others on the reimagining Africa's ecological futures looking at it's called the Africa Ecological Futures Assessment and really doing something similar to what you're doing is trying to see what will what will that our ecological future look like and how what should it look like and what decisions should we make now to start now to ensure that while we develop and while we we we pursue our ambitious NDCs or ambitious economic plans we still have our ecological future intact and this asset intact going forward I look forward to this report I look forward to continuing to engage with the review thank you very much over to you thank you so much Alice very thought-provoking response to Professor Dasgupta's report we appreciate your input I move over to our fourth respondent Mr. Rood Janssen is the Executive Secretary of the Secretariat for the Gabaronne Declaration for Sustainability in Africa so Rood I leave it up to you to say what this declaration is about and what you're doing I think speaking to some of the solutions that have been being pointed out by in Professor Dasgupta's interim report so Rood over to you and you do have five minutes please so we look forward to your intervention thank you very much Philip and good day to all colleagues and participants Professor Dasgupta thanks for your report and your very eloquent presentation and thanks also to my co-panelists for indicating a whole range of issues that we certainly need to to take into consideration here I just want to concentrate on on on two issues one I will talk a little bit about the about the Gabaronne Declaration but within the context of my point one and which is really to link up with one of Professor Dasgupta's sort of final points where it's almost as if you know the economic systems rather that we are that we're applying here seem to be sort of working against us and working against nature and what can we do to make them work for us I mean we all know that GDP in my own word seems to be sort of measuring economic effort more than well-being or dignity of people which I think we really need to think very carefully about here is it fit for purpose what do we need to do is it the same system that has got us into this mess that we can use to provide the solutions and I think it's more of a maybe slightly more theoretical or strategic discussion but I think you know Professor Dasgupta has given us as teed it up is it where to have that discussion and make it more more fundamental because the way we're going at the moment with overexploitation and sustainable patterns of consumption and production you know we consistently take more out than we put back in and I think when we realize that what we put back in is more in a form of waste than than investments to to restore or to to protect nature we started losing the plot and we need to do something to to make that work much better for us and I'm glad Alice and others have used you know natural based solutions they're obviously there we can we can use those we can use nature in a much better way and my point would be to to also see the the value of biodiversity and nature and its ecosystems goods and services and its natural resources but really within the context of 15 coming up we really need to make a business case for for nature and that brings me to the GDSA the government declaration was signed in 2012 just a month before Rio plus 20 and as you know Rio plus 20 sort of really addressed the the economic side of sustainable development after the previous two we really discussed more environment and and and social issues so the 10 leaders at the time in in in 2012 signed a declaration that is based on the premise that Africa has a lot of resources it still has a lot of nature we need that nature and the resources to develop the opportunities and economic growth for people on the African continent to get out of poverty get higher levels of well-being but at the same time they realized that we don't really have a good understanding of the true value of all those resources that we that we are having and we feel very privileged to to have those resources in Africa but do we deal with the right value do we use that value to inform our planning our policy our budgets etc so on the basis of that sort of premise the the leaders at the time and we are 16 now by the way we we've moved from 10 to 16 over the last couple of of years and they argued that it was very important for us to do more work on natural capital accounting now I think the the review by the team led by Professor Dascupta sort of makes makes reference to it but I think what we have found with working with several African countries is that in order to influence say policy making and making sure that the leaders and the champions as we've been discussing it sort of really take note of nature as an asset and getting nature into your national system of accounts you really need to talk the language of the people who are making those decisions and those that are colleagues economists and colleagues environmentalists and colleagues policymakers in the various government institutions and the private sector as well let's let's not forget the role of the private sector in this but to talk that language we felt very strongly that we should spend more time on national capital accounting which you actually probably know you can do at an ecosystem level but you can also do it for various topics be it minerals energy water forest etc and that's what the members of the Havana decoration are doing we facilitate that process as the as the secretary and what we have noticed so far is that with those efforts it becomes very important to translate what comes out of those accounting activities which could also be just you know you can a very simple straightforward economic valuations is to translate that into language that are policy makers and colleagues understand and can use for better decision-making and as a last point that I want to mention here is that in order to facilitate that process we've just recently just last month started together with the World Bank and a number of the UN agencies a community of practice on national capital accounting where experts can learn from one another we anticipate exchanges which we've already facilitated through the GDSA amongst countries in the past and to really just make the case that you can use this information for a better dialogue with the with the policy makers and in that way you know we can really develop more of that political capital I think that that some of us have already have already mentioned so really that brings me to a very old saying that has been with us for a while which I think the review so seems to support is that we really need to think globally but we need to act locally locally being definition bound as in something that you can do at community level personal level but also regional and continental to move to to move this forward so let's indeed make sure that all what we're doing and the economic economic systems that we find ourselves in can be tweaked for them to work for us and for nature and SCI would say people need nature to thrive you know nature can pretty well do without people but we can't do it the other way around thanks very much thank you so much Ruth wonderful we look forward of course to working with you on scaling up the natural capital accounting across my next question is Mr. Richard Gatia Mr. Gatia is the president of the Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry which is a premier business membership organization in Kenya that was established actually way back in 1965 and is present on the 47 counties in Kenya at the same time you also plays an essential role as the chairman of the international conference of the great next region which is a private sector forum that championed peace security and stability in the great next region of Africa Mr. Gatia over to you you bring in a very important perspective which is the private sector but not just the private sector but I think they're focusing on the small and medium and micro enterprises which is of course across the African landscape we know that's quite a huge part of the private sector that is not usually represented in conversations like this but has a huge impact on environment so over to you sir and please you have five minutes all right thank you very much Dr. Philip Osano I'm very grateful this afternoon this morning to be part of the panelists and also a team that is to review the Das Gupta interim report so I'm very grateful so distinguished guests ladies and gentlemen it is my distinct privilege and on behalf of the Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry to join you at this historic event to commit our strategic partnership and collaboration in this end over so we are happy to be part of the team to review and give our submission and comments on the role of the private sector in enabling green growth as well so today both governments and the private sector are increasingly aware of the convergence between sustainable development and market priorities so at the chamber we have four pillars that we operate and which is policy advocacy trade development and SMA development and therefore we are committed to sustainability and takes the sustainable development goals as one of the guiding frameworks for policies of the chamber and the business operations of its members as well so the majority of the members are micro small and medium enterprises as well so currently we as a chamber are undertaking the switch Africa green that is the green to grow project by training SMEs on sustainable consumption production we are also providing post-covid support to the team to support recovery efforts and in its promotion of sustainable consumption and production the EU funded switch Africa green program to address particularly the needs roles and potential of small medium sized enterprises so that are driving force of economic growth employment trade and innovation in Africa while focusing on achieving the following sustainable development goals namely number seven which is the affordable and clean energy number eight which is decent work and economic growth also looking at number 11 sustainable cities and communities number 12 which is a responsible consumption and production and last but not least the number 17 which is partnership for the goals so I want to comment on professor Gupta report and give our submission as KNCCI so as a business sector we welcome the interim report of the Gupta review because it highlights the need for engagement and promotion of technical support and financing of MSMEs to incorporate biodiversity protection and conversation practices in the operations to adapt practices that reduce the negative impacts of the businesses products and services of biodiversity as well so this will enable us to promote green enterprises that contribute towards building a green economy serving the majority of the population including a small holder farmers so SMEs can contribute to green growth through eco innovation, eco adoption, eco entrepreneurship which are termed as the three types of green SMEs so we as a chamber have played an important role in the past and we're still playing that role in the effort of transition Kenya's economy to a green inclusive model and looks towards overcoming some of the challenges such as lack of technology low capacities and financing gaps so currently the organization is part of an important partnership composed of Kenya and European institutions with you know who have come together with the objective to promote sustainable green transformation in Kenya's agribusiness sector and as an umbrella body of all businesses organization and associations in Kenya the Kenya national chamber of commerce and industry fully support embracing of the green economy to promote sustainable consumption and production as part of the global environmental conservation efforts so in the green to grow project an initiative financed by the European Union through the African wide switch Africa green program KNCCI and its partners include the stock home environment institute are supporting MSMEs to adopt green technologies and practices this is to increase the competitiveness and agri-food sector while also reducing the environment you know environmental footprint so less population reduced waste and improved environmental condition on farm and along the value chains as well then currently the chamber is also supporting the training of SMEs on sustainable production and consumption practices and so far over 100 SMEs that we have supported in three value chains as follows this is a mango coffee and daily value chain sectors have been trained on business model converse that enables them reflect systematically on their sustainable business growth so we have supported a total of 15 counties and for the benefit of those who may not know the geographic of Kenya we are devolving to 47 counties one is that the counties that benefited Meru, Embu, Kiambu, Kelifi there is Transoya, Muranga, Kisi, Kitui, Mombasa, Kerichoneri, Nandi, Iwasingishu and Kajadu counties so those counties actually are the beneficiaries so we have contributed to the production of an important and truly innovative inventory on sustainable consumption and production practices in Kenya's mango coffee and daily value chains which contains a series of green and energy efficient technologies and practices that vary from you know traditional knowledge development through years of local experience to cost-effective green technologies that are a result of an accumulation of local international investment in research and development so again we as KCCI have also used our technical business expertise and this is to provide technical assistance to dozens of agri-preneurs on the fundamentals of green business modeling and cost structures so thus helping to render the green transition effort more sustainable so through these efforts we are contributing to building bioeconomy in Kenya in line with objectives of the Kenya green strategy and implementation plan this is 2016 to 2030 and this is what was alluded by P.S. Julius Muir and therefore to achieve this implementation plan we at KCCI propose that we must be one collaboration have a collaboration between all sectors of society business and government two is policies that advance economic growth while enhancing environmental protection and social progress and that are consistent with international trade rules and then provide access to finance promote technology transfers strength and capacity and reduces inequality and the third is to promote socio-environmental and economic innovation a green economy is one that is embedded in global markets and balance sheets and therefore this drives innovation in private and public finance so again the fourth one is to support balancing short and long-term strategies so a green economy needs to reconcile the need for short and medium-term pressure profits with long-term shared value so parties to continue also adaptation and that is a coherence and operation of the legislative framework addressing green economy challenges as well and then develop adequate economic and financial instruments to support the implementation of priority programs such as energy efficiency and the development of recycling and waste composition industries and lastly is to ensure that the new industrial strategy integrates environmental requirements and participates in the growth of green industries innovation and regional development as well so we as KCCI and the larger business community looks forward to the final report of the Dasgupta review and to acting to implement the recommendations arising from the same so we will continue to work with all the partners in research and in governments to contribute to actions that lead to the achievement of the SDGs so for me in conclusion is building a green economy that will not possible without you know partnering innovatively with the private sector local communities and the civil society so such partnership should enable the mobilization of needed investments and technology solutions so local skills development and intensify the commitment and solidarity of all stakeholders in the country so eco innovative SMEs will be the real driving force of the green economy so really as the KCCI we are committed to work with all stakeholders and in institutions to support the private sector agenda to adapt the green economy programs with a lot of focus to the SMEs so again panelists and participants Dr. Fili Posandoud Professor Dasgupta thank you very much and I'm looking forward to the implementation thank you thank you so much President Gattia we really appreciate your input very critical to look at the private sector we of course looking forward to continue the conversation with you. Ladies and gentlemen finally last but not least it is now my single pleasure to invite Dr. Abebe Haile Gabriel Dr. Abebe is the assistant director general and the regional representative for Africa for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations FAO. Dr. Abebe is trained in agriculture economics he has a PhD in agriculture economics he has previously actually been one of the leading taught leaders in Africa he worked at the African Union Commission for several years in different capacities concluding as the director of the Department of Rural Economy and Agriculture where I had the pleasure to work with him for a year in developing the African agricultural strategy for 2015-2025. Dr. Abebe over to you and please we are short on time so I know you have a lot to share but can you stick to five minutes thank you. Do we have Dr. Abebe online? Okay yes I was as muted thank you so much Philippe let me also thank Professor Nassupta for an excellent presentation as well as fellow analysts for a very rich discussion of course we welcome the review and the interim report and appreciate the efforts towards consultation to seek inputs on Africa specific contexts the interim report sets out the clear objectives it provides a good framework to identify key issues and actions actually at the ground at the various levels the reference to sense of agency and doing business differently is appropriate all the more so taking into account the challenges brought about by the COVID pandemic COVID-19 pandemic which is fundamentally altering economic and social realities now viewing nature as an asset and biodiversity laws as an asset management problem is quite correct but the question still remains on the adequacy of governance mechanisms and processes to manage such portfolio of assets at all levels with inbuilt systems of shared ownership and accountability on options for change that can both enhance biodiversity and deliver economic prosperity it might be necessary to identify possible tradeoffs between these two aspirations namely enhancing biodiversity and delivering prosperity and how to account for for these tradeoffs the interim report asserts that over the years economic prosperity has been achieved through processes that have been anathema to nature quite rightly coming to the distributional dimensions the interim report rightly identifies that much the much of the biosphere remains open access resource and this is the reason to the problem at hand it could perhaps have gone a little deeper to analyze the differentiated roles of agency and processes taking into account such as for example trade both legal and illegal to determine who has actually been exploiting nature and for what purpose and who has actually been disproportionately paying the price for the negative consequences for instance IUU the illegal and reported unregulated fishing is a big problem along the african coast FAO tried to introduce the post state the port state measure agreement enforcement has been a challenge the discussion on globally inefficient management of our portfolio of assets is quite revealing the contrast between rates of return on produced capital vis-a-vis on planar planetary biomass rests on who owns the two strands of capital and who makes the investment decision exploitation decision private capital rests on private or corporate ownership regime planetary capital faces on the other hand the open access resource dilemma one could also argue that after all much of the biosphere is not equally open to all at no monetary charge it's more open and disproportionately so to some powerful segments of the humanity at no monetary chart and as the expense of the more disadvantaged ones the reference to humanity as has been uniformly mismanaging the global portfolio of assets may obscure the agency problem empowering the citizen is key which the interim report identifies as the social evaluator the role of the citizen and the relations of this citizen with public and private sectors has significant rendition in the african context the major concern is that this citizen is yet to empower herself sufficiently so as to influence the behavior and outcomes of the interactions with the private and public sectors the emphasis that the interim report puts on social systems and institutions is appropriate towards correcting the structural imbalances and deficiencies in this regard such a differentiated approach would also apply at country and regional levels in the global political economic landscape now some reflections on the options for change valuation the first point the true value of biodiversity contributions to human well-being is still underappreciated particularly in decision-making processes and investments biodiversity is still an open and often taken for granted the interim report recognizes this but I think it needs to emphasize it further data is available to assess the status of our planet with respect to critical socioeconomic and environmental issues for example FAO makes a wealth of information freely available to users worldwide in its FAO stat methodologies are also available to enable valuation of all aspects of agricultural services within the national GDP for example in collaboration with UN sustainable development and the UN statistical commission FAO has developed and published this year the system of economic environmental accounts for agriculture forestry and fisheries on policy the importance of avoiding the risk of perverse incentives is important the report says clearly that growth did happen at the expense of nature the benefits were not shared equitably it will be necessary to determine who was mainly responsible for impact inequality the interim report identifies demographic trends population growth and capital emphasis which is large and growing fast in developing countries most notably in Africa on the other hand it correctly identified and I'm very happy that Professor Dasgupta has underlined this that sub-Saharan Africa which represents only three percent of the world economy cannot remotely be held responsible for the global environmental problems we face today how about a fair global order to deal with inequalities in the real estate the question still remains as to whether economic incentives mainly through correcting price distortions namely the divergence between the market prices and accounting prices could redress the structural anomalies in wealth distribution both within national and international dimensions perhaps we can borrow a leaf from the climate change narratives the principle of shared but differentiate responsibilities and capacities and finally step on stepping up advocacy and capacity strengthening in 2019 FAO convened a series of regional dialogues on mainstreaming biodiversity across agriculture sectors including one for Africa that was held in Kigali Rwanda in November 2019 a list of recommendations were made covering areas ranging from awareness raising and knowledge sharing to research and development and from building alliances to strengthening capacities and systems among others in the interest of time let me stop here I very much look forward to receiving the final report once again thank you so much for the opportunity thank you professor Dasbukta for your team for the leadership thank you over to you thank you so much thank you so much dr Bebe we appreciate your input and we look forward of course to continue the engagement with you it's now the point where we have to move to the next session and just just before moving to the next session I would like to introduce my colleague who is going to moderate this session Mr Joe Agayo is a well-known journalist from Africa also with a background in environment and he will take us through the next session which is very exciting because we'll get to start answering some of your questions so Joe over to you please all right thank you very much Philippe for that very illuminating session I think it is it is fair to say that we have clearly accounted for a lot of things I've heard about natural capital natural capital accounting and I think it is only fair to start with the natural question that reminds us out of these things which is to professor Dasbukta that this review is one among many things that have happened many reports that we have seen how would you say this is fundamentally different from the other reports we've seen about the economic value of biodiversity for example and the report that has been referenced here many times the economics of ecosystems and biodiversity for example either in terms of the methodology or even in terms of the findings well thank you very much the I think the easiest way for me to address your question is to remind us of what we heard from the previous six speakers which were amazingly rich set of observations and which absolutely without this suggests that decentralization works I have not do not know any of the six speakers but they their observations were completely in tune with the review and so yes that's in some sense is the right answer to your question because you will not see in any of the previous writings an overarching narrative of the way we need to think about the economics of our diversity or our if you like our daily lives environmental and resource there's two classes of studies one is of is the state of the environment reports for example MA millennium is ecosystem assessment or the more recent IPBS report they're telling you about what the world is like ours is not a state of the environment report we borrow from their findings but their findings themselves were based on serious scientific work by colleagues in the environmental sciences and in ecology and I have borrowed actually directly from the original sources rather than relying on IPBS or millennium ecosystem assessment because as you know from translation translation often creates errors is best to go to the original sources so most of our references in the in the early chapters of the review where we study the science of nature are based on original work so that's one class the other class environmental resource economics essentially is concerned with valuation and if you don't mind chairman I'd like to speak a little bit to it it's so store it was that literature which is extremely rich no question about it enormously interesting techniques were developed on valuation which say cpm travel cost methods and so forth there were in many ways motivated by the demands of the world's rich people they were concerned with the mainities and if I may say so only 20 years ago I used to be told by members of the planning commission in India well where is the where's the money in all this this is rich countries problems they want to have clean beaches our poor people can't go to even beaches that loan clean beaches so if you look at nature as a luxury good you get much of the flavor of environmental and resource economics my review is doesn't take that position at all it takes nature services as deeply ingrained in us we are nature services with the product of nature services so the question of luxury don't write a call we're looking at an interrelated system and each of the many of the three of all the six speakers raised matters and pointed to issues which are deeply studied in the review let me just give you two quick examples and then I'll field some further questions Dr. Mathai asked a very very good question if we know this why isn't anything been done and I can give you an example of my from my own experience which is nature is highly interconnected now that seems an absolutely tried observation but it does mean that if you bring natural nature's project green projects let's call it okay green projects singly a wetland here or a garden there or a bit of forest here and presented and say we want to preserve it or we want to invest with the government ought to invest money to preserve it typically the ministry of transport the ministry of finance will override it because there is more money in something else extending the road system for example money being now social good money because it's going to bring trade possibilities open but because nature is interconnected the projects nature-based solution projects are complementary to one another so you really can't ever win if you can come with small projects against produced capital projects which are involving the production of produced capital you need to think integratedly we haven't done that we haven't encouraged to do that and we haven't been encouraged to do that because we take ourselves to be external to nature that's that's where the real rubbish so Dr. Mathai she asked exactly the right question and I think we do have an answer which is you bring small projects bit by bit green projects and they will lose unless the decision maker happens to have some particular fondness for a particular species of trees or animals or something but you don't want to rely on that so that's one thing the other is that the review really goes deep into the the relationship between poverty real deep poverty and environmental protection that is biodiversity protection and which is why in my summary of our review the introductory remarks I pointed to the fact that we really have to look at the economics of biodiversity at least when I say at least at the global level by hitching it on to the economics of poverty because it's the poor who reside in biodiverse rich parts of the world I mean that's when I say literally in this on the scene on the locale and I don't want to belabor it and I have to be ginger about it because I need to produce the evidence in a way that's persuasive but broadly speaking we're looking at an urban rural face-to-face confrontation the demands are made of the urban area because they're richer decision makers are there they are ingrained in it and this is true or throughout the world of course in some countries rural populations can be very powerful rich farmers for example that we are looking at now we're talking now in terms of Africa and we are looking at small households spread out over the continent which is the link that we draw in the review between poverty and biodiversity at the extreme level now means that the demand is being fashioned elsewhere and it's impinging on the local community and so we should not be surprised that the cure for poverty that we've seen over the past 30 years in the international sphere has really effectively asked the way to do that is to remove people from their sources and make them richer elsewhere employment opportunities in cities and so forth and you can see why in a way it multiplies the pressure on biodiversity because who's speaking for nature when there aren't people there you can go and exploit it so that link is something we are we've done in the context of common property resources the micro level unfortunately most of my examples are really from the Indian subcontinent because the Indians of continent has produced economists who have actually spent time doing fieldwork there there is quite a bit in Africa as well but not quite as rich a literature that there is in in south asia but anyway we i cannot at best give you instances each country each region has to find its own solutions and the which is why we are offering a grammar not the solution the solution has to come internally from the sources um the finally the third question which i'll speak to because that also speaks to your thing several members have talked about the business case for nature and one of the things that the this grammar tells us is that there is no platonic notion of what the business case is the business case is what we make of the business case when i say we i mean our institutions the much of the biosphere is free so of course the business person's case will be why would i wish to invest in something which is has very low return well society can make that thing which has now a low rate of return have very high rate of return by actually changing what is allowed and what's not allowed so institutional reform really is something which redirects the motivations of individuals and groups and the review sees that so there's no absolute notion of the business interest business interest can be transformed tomorrow by completely by change of the legal system by the norms that we choose to follow this approval of certain types of activities will then become translated into altered set of business interests provided there is sufficient pressure from this disapproval social disapproval people stop buying stuff from it from a firm which is misbehaving we do not spend much time although there is an entire annex on corruption and illegal trade in charismatic organisms we do have an annex but it's in some sense a giveaway because we are it's very easy if something is illegal is bad okay unless the law is bad of course but assuming the law is good something which is illegal is bad you don't have to write an interview to explain that the real trick is to see why things are bad even though they're legal we need to change the law we need to change the norms and we have a lot in that so these three examples are i would give to as an illustration of how the review is entirely different from what you've been reading well thank you very much for that because i think what you touched on at the end there partly addresses the question of what what has been called this divisional equity if you think about where the the biodiversity value is appropriated and where in fact for example it is it is produced so there is that that imbalance that that is there but i think i want to tie this down with the point that alice raised a little bit earlier and i'll go to the other panelist in a moment but professor alice raised the point of this whole question of nature being an asset and therefore how the new that translates in communities for example where there is human wildlife conflict where people see an elephant and they actually see a danger to their next crop season so so where is that perspective that captures that seeming contradiction where whereas it might be an asset for some people to exploit but in another part in another context it is actually a problem thank you very much i'm sorry i overlooked that question these are i could just i keep on repeating but these four these six sets of observations were absolutely terrific i thought i was really not only are they good but it's also self serves my purpose because they're very much in line with the drift on my review this question is extremely good but because it has wider ramifications instead of it we can look at the very local problem of the elephants and the villagers who who lived there and is a danger it could be you can even talk about this lion who comes in destroys the title or whatever so there are plenty of examples of that sort but now take this move to another continent and look at the burning of the amazon that is currently happening we read about it every day how many how many belgium's are being burned by each decade in the amazon the size of belgium as it were these kinds of statistics which are very very the government let us say the government says in this case the farmer says or the the inhabitant says the elephant is a nuisance and is harming our livelihood in the other case in the macroeconomics case the government is claiming that it's extremely important for their development and employment opportunities so it's our property who are you to say anything look at the latter case the brazilian case standard economies will tell us that if it is a public good it's a global public good the forest the amazon forest then we all ought to be contributing to its preservation it's that's how it is it's implode public good public goods people pay for it if they're enjoying some benefit likewise in the case of elephant to protect the elephant they the villages need to be to be to be compensated for their danger maybe some attention has to be given to helping them move the people move because it's harder for elephants to find a new terrain but what i'm saying is that institutional institutional design must take into account the competing demands the whole of life is full of it that i need something somebody else needs something and there's some mediation possibilities typically we think government regulations market system mediates these conflicting demands here we have a serious problem because there are no markets which is the reason why you've asked the question alice asked the question but again for each such example we need to find a way to compensate the parties to be able to avoid the issue and in the brazilian case surely it's it's times that the international community got together to say how can we help a nation which feels there are private returns to be had national returns to be had from its global public good to protect it all right thank you very much professor i want to expand this a little bit to the other panelists obviously we have very little time but we'll try and make the best use of it and i'll come to you alice because you've been mentioned quite a bit here but i want to tie my question to you with what one of our participants here has brought as a question through our chat platform which by the way you can continue using to send your comments and questions and this is lanas mofo and he says professor das gupta has made a great point about african's very limited role in contributing to today's mess in the spirit of environmental and climate justice he asks how should this be accounted for in assessing how we use the remaining commons and having africans share use and right development and equity so alice i want to hear your response to that and i will of course i'll come back to professor das gupta a little later i want to start with alice and then probably the rest of the fund is to see what perspectives you can get alice thank you for the question um interesting question i um i was just reading today uh in uh in the devx that the incoming um head of the global environment facility has suggested that they we put a value a global gdp for nature a percent of gdp towards nature and he's suggesting one percent i haven't calculated how much that is but i think my answer to you is if africa has not contributed to this mess then we maybe maybe we should someone should compensate us for for not contributing to this mess and i don't know how much of that one percent gdp we should get um that is that is a simple answer i would give you in terms of how do we account for that but i think another thing the professor talked about which also concerned me and i would challenge the rest of us is the he mentioned that he uses a lot of examples from major and india and because there's a lot of work done in that in that area and i thought well even in africa we should do a lot more work on bringing out the the various examples that we have um on the value of nature and nature as an asset and and all of those interconnections so um joe i don't have a straightforward answer but i think i'll pass it on to the other panelists to talk about the justice and and all of that but i think for me it is it the form of compensation could be one way of looking at that if the value is elsewhere and the cost is here then there must be some level of compensation but also we should produce a lot more um literature and contribute to this the report coming up to really bring out the african experience and the and the and the african agency over all right thank you maybe we could go to juan jara madai and just hear your thoughts on this question of of of justice relative to african's differentiated responsibility as it was i think um dropped off the call yeah joe i think juan jara has dropped off the call oh i'm sorry about that okay then we could get um rude i don't know uh if you could jump in and and set the day here rude jump hi thanks um uh joe and um you know definitely um support that uh that that's thinking and and the question um just to give you an example of how it works with the with the gds and the man and what i mentioned before was you know we need to start talking uh the language of the people who uh to make the decisions and and and get that point across and if we if we need to make a better case of how we can make use of you know the the resources that are still still with us um i i have a sort of generic example of uh how uh call it country a who'd be chopping down uh almost an entire forest area and and and sold it uh in the individual trees as it were sold sold the timber and when it was pointed out that the total value of the forest was infinitely bigger than the value of say 10 000 individual trees people really twigged and and could see that you know once we start putting the real economic value of it and this is not to monetize it this is not money in the bank this is economic value that allows you to make better decisions and plan better and and and develop better policies and i think that's the way to go i think one of the ways to go in africa is to have a better appreciation of what it what it is that we have and where we feel we have to sell where we feel there are trade-offs and everybody who's you know aware of what standard development means in practice is aware that we can't always have our cake and eat it as it were but but make sure that there are there are trade-offs that we we are fully aware of what we are trading off at which value and make the best decision with the information available so really it boils down to me and this is where i want to to end is you know let's let's be more appreciative of the of the real value of what we have so we can really make better decisions in in addition to the justice issue and how much of that is is rural versus urban and and i take prof's you know observations on that and and Alice's issue on on on compensation yeah eco justice is an issue it is particularly relevant to to africa but let's let's arm ourselves with the right information and argument to to make that case at at the global level and for ourselves in africa thank you all right all right thank you dr abeber helge brielle um you you kind of refer to this a little bit towards the end of your presentation but i'd like you to tie this into the question that comes from dears chavez roger dears chavez and and and say there have been proposals for alternative indicators to gdp that actually show the well-being of people then he's asking which could be the indicators to consider instead of gdp that shows that all these synergies that we're talking about and with regard to biodiversity conservation uh i don't know where where are you stand on this just hold on just hold on uh okay i can see you've been we have been given a voice now you can speak okay it's not easy when your voice is controlled from i guess makes you understand the concept of the voiceless in society okay uh to say that africa was was not responsible for the miss is not the same thing as saying we can be responsible for what is going to happen going forward okay so um are we going to follow the same kind of trajectory in the uh in the way we transform our economies or are we going to take important lessons from those practices which have been harmful to nature and so on i think this is very important what i see is as disjunction a kind of uh the linking of the the arguments at the policy level between those who are responsible for economic growth economic transformation and those who are responsible for uh environment natural resources and so on issues such as nature-based solutions restorations and so on these are very uh current in in some quarters but i'm not sure if they have gone uh they are found in ways into those who make decisions uh on on economic growth and so on at the country level start i'm i'm talking about country level so getting the narratives and the arguments right and sharing core sharing multi-sectorally i think this will help uh quite a lot now at the end of the day um the results the the the results that we're going to the outcomes that we're going to get depends on who is going to do what at the uh the individual level so called citizens at the community level and so on but that is where real actions are taking place and the examples that was mentioned uh earlier uh the the conflicts between what happens at the local level the use of the the the elephant uh and at the macro economic level how would the that unit at that level be it individual or communities and in the african sense communities make a lot of sense uh how do they see that how do they perceive but they perceive that perceiving do they perceive it as owning it fully or do they perceive it as something that is owned by something outside of their control i think that is where we need to really emphasize the issue of empowering the citizen and the communities and also strengthen the institutions uh and and capacities i think it is very very important uh so uh yeah okay over to you all right thank you very much uh dr helen gabriel i i am afraid that our time has really gone and we need to move to the next segment please remember that this conversation is still going on online the on twitter the hashtags that we're using is does group to review um the other one is economics of biodiversity and the other one is hashtag biodiversity so please keep this conversation going even as we move over to to the next session and i want to to hand this back to to philip thank thank you so much joe um thank you for moderating this session we we appreciate and as joe said we will get back to all the questions that have been submitted to us i would like to invite sandisha with the deputy director head of the economics of biodiversity review team at harmonious discretion in the uk to take us through the ministerial segment so sandi overtube this wonderful thank you um so as you mentioned this is uh the ministerial segment now we're very uh delighted very fortunate to have with us today um honorable uh francis gattare gattare CEO and cabinet secretary of the rwandan mines petroleum and gas board honorable kemi beidanoch um the exec ex jecker secretary to the treasury and i believe we're also expecting honorable ambassador ukul yatani cabinet secretary from the kenya national treasury um so uh fantastic um uh showing of support for for these issues and i believe we're waiting on um uh ambassador yatani so if i could start with honorable francis gattare we're delighted to have you join us today randa randa is of course very alive to the importance of natural capital and has shown considerable leadership in the region on natural capital accounting including as an early member of the world bank's waves program so we're very keen to hear your perspectives today if i could uh hand over to you please thank you thank you very much uh for having me and uh i want to thank uh professor that group and the team who are working on the report and uh for a fantastic presentation today i hope you can hear me is that correct yes we can okay very good i uh also want to thank the uk government who have sponsored this study as well as the kenyan government who have posted us today for this event thank you all who have made presentations that have enriched the uh discussions uh for me uh it's an easy presentation i'm going to make following a very rich presentation that experts have done uh because the report uh that professor that uh that group that has presented and worked on for some time has made a very strong and compelling case about biodiversity at the center of many economic activities particularly in africa these activities of course have got a very far-reaching impact to the livelihoods of many whether it's in agriculture whether it's in fisheries natural resources and other things but too many sometimes it's a matter of life and death because they derive their day-to-day survival on on biodiversity uh there is therefore a very important role for leadership to make sure that the rates are always going to be coherence whether it's in strategy and policy uh at the global level at the regional level and at the national level because the impact of the effects of the degradation of biodiversity often is more severe to the local communities i want to speak more originally uh on africa which is uh highly endowed with the immense resources of biodiversity but unfortunately which continues also to witness the degradation of this biodiversity as a result of the conflict that continues to manifest itself between human livelihoods and the conservation efforts for the for the biodiversity and therefore it's very important that any activities that we put in place for the conservation of this biodiversity is seen in in that lens whether it's at the global level regional level or at the local level in rwanda we have witnessed that even though it's very convenient for people to see the global effects of the exploitation and degradation of biodiversity globally and and look at the low levels of the contribution of the african continent and say that well it's our time we must focus on development and not so much on conservation but we realize that when the negative effect of the continued degradation of biodiversity happens its effects get felt more locally than globally and so it's very important that as a government we take leadership to put in place measures that are going to prevent the continued degradation of this biodiversity and associated ecosystem services it's a it's a reason why for example rwanda has recently articulated the uh of the most recent uh national declaration uh on our own contribution the ndc to the paris declaration taking on board some very ambitious programs that are going to contribute to the global efforts but particularly uh being implemented here locally and moderately just rightly pointed out the efforts that we have put into the natural capital accounting which we have uh completed with the support of the world bank uh program uh that you right dimension and the focus was on four areas which was to uh carry out an inventory and accounting system of uh natural capital particularly land water forestry and natural resources particularly minerals this exercise was very very eye-opening for a number of reasons that many uh participants have already pointed out in the previous presentations that the collective value of the natural uh capital assets that we have tends to be higher than the exploited resources that come out of it well this is very compelling case for conservation it was also revealing in another sense that uh while we are working on a business model that has got to leverage your natural resources for the development of our nations sometimes the uh inefficient methods uh that are used for the exploitation and leveraging of these resources tends to provide the value that is far less than the collective natural capital if left intact and to its own and what this brought out to us throughout is that uh for countries to make good use of this natural capital accounting system there is the big role of technology transfer a big role of knowledge transfer for the improvement of the methods that are used the production methods in that sense that are used for the economic activities of of this country or of any country uh let me say when that is not the case then the exploitation methods tend to be very inefficient and yet seem to be necessary which leaves a country at a loss in terms of the utilization of their endowments I have to say that despite all this Rwanda has also taken on an approach of implementing a low carbon growth strategy noting the fact that we have got a role to play as an individual country in the contribution to the global efforts to make sure that global biodiversity and associated ecosystems that are not only preserved but also restored we have also witnessed some efforts that are done by local communities and sometimes the most effective efforts are done locally for example when we were faced with the continued degradation of our national parks especially in the habitat for the mountain gorillas it was the community in northern rwanda which came together and created an association they called the Sabi in your community livelihood association or SAKOLA which was created in 2004 with two distinct but uh complementary objectives one was to see how as the community they can improve their own livelihood by promoting income generation activities around the national park known as the volcano national park the habitat for the mountain gorillas on the other hand they wanted to see how they could contribute to the protection of the national park and the conservation efforts for the for the mountain gorillas and ensure that they are a solution rather than a problem where previously they had been exploiting the forest particularly poaching on the animals they were supported by the government they were given opportunities for employment but also government made a commitment to share revenue that comes out of tourism that is a major income uh from the tourists that go to visit the mountain gorillas now 10 percent of all the revenue from the mountain gorilla tourism efforts goes to that community two things have happened one their objective for income generation had been achieved as they have seen many of many of them participating in tour operations and therefore raising their incomes but also shared directly on the grants coming from the tourism and conservation uh agency of the country and now they have become major stakeholders in conservation which has contributed to not only uh keeping the mountain gorillas safe but seeing their numbers continue to grow this is being replicated now in the mining sector where we are implementing a green mining approach by using local artisan miners who previously many of whom previously were illegal miners in artisan in artisanal nature to begin to see that when they contribute and participate in conservation efforts there can also be direct benefit to them which in this case is a 10 percent transfer of all royalty benefits from minerals going to the mining communities and so what i'm saying is that there is an effort that national governments have got to put in place to translate the conservation efforts into direct benefits to the world social well-being of the population by putting in place measures that promote an economic model of inclusive growth but also that promote shared value in the benefits of alternative economic well-being that comes as a result of conservation and so today Rwanda continues on a journey of implementing the inclusive economic growth development but also implementing a social well-being and citizen-centered development approach we have seen this not only increase the the awareness of the population for biodiversity and conservation but in general bringing the communities as stakeholders in restoring previously damaged environment i'll give you an example in Rwanda if anybody came to Kigali today as many of you may soon do you begin to see some of the areas that were previously industrial areas in lowlands that were marshlands or waterways that now have been restored as natural areas natural habitats for purposes of restoring the natural waterways this comes at the high cost particularly to compensate the property owners and also to reclaim some of these areas but it's a cost that we think governments have got to undertake in order to make a contribution to this effort let me conclude by highlighting that while governments at the national level can take unilateral efforts because they see these efforts in the end national efforts alone cannot be sufficient we have got to continue to do regional collaboration as we are doing in the transboundary areas around the volcano national park which is shared between Uganda Rwanda and and DRC Congo because any effort that is not complemented by regional efforts then becomes a cost a direct cost given the fact that sometimes there is a short-term conflict between economic gains and long-term benefits from biodiversity and conservation i want to say that Rwanda has demonstrated the commitment to continue to play a role in contributing to this biodiversity conservation despite often competing objectives let me say but we focus on the fact that where we see challenges sometimes there are also opportunities and responding to the opportunities and challenges linked to biodiversity requires collaborative efforts across government and other stakeholders particularly local communities and private sector operators in the general therefore this can only be enhanced through national level regular updating of biodiversity strategies and participating in regional and global efforts so that everything that we do is complemented and the augmented by collaborative efforts by others let me conclude by thanking once again for giving us the opportunity to share Rwanda's story and for me in particular to participate on behalf of my other colleagues in the government thank you wonderful thank you thank you honorable minister great to hear you speak there about both local action in Rwanda and also the regional dimension as you say both really important and we need leadership at all levels i was particularly struck by your comment there about how focus on livelihoods can simultaneously deliver positive outcomes for nature and for communities and that's certainly something that we want to think about in in the review so thank you if i may turn now to the Honourable Kemi Baden-Och the Executive Secretary to the UK Treasury thank you for joining us today and for your continued support to the review the UK recently announced funding for several initiatives to support a green recovery and i wonder if i could invite you to say a few words about those and share your perspectives more broadly on the economics of biodiversity many people have said to me that Treasury's commissioning of the review shows significant leadership already on these issues so if i may could hand over to you thank you thank you sandy ministers ladies and gentlemen it's a huge pleasure to be joining you all today as the minister representing the UK Treasury as a global review professor Dasgupta and his team are keenly aware of the importance of ensuring the review benefits from a wide range of experiences perspectives and expertise and so thank you to our panelists and all of you who have participated today i'd also like to thank Kenya's national treasury and the stock home environment institute for convening today's dialogue and the support given by the african development bank this collaboration builds on the UK and Kenya's existing cooperation on climate and environment issues this includes our work to protect and enhance Kenya's natural capital through the forest 2020 project which aims to help protect and restore forests by improving forest monitoring through the use of satellite data and of course the kenya-uk strategic partnership which was launched by president kenyatta and prime minister boris johnson earlier this year and it places climate and the environment at the center of our joint efforts it will come as no surprise that the uk government's focus as with many governments around the world is addressing the devastating impacts of covid-19 and restoring our way of life but the last few months have also brought into sharp focus the strong links between the health of our environment and the long-term health of our economy and society as my colleague and cop 26 president alok shama has made clear we all share one life-giving but fragile planet and we all share an interconnected global economy and that's why the das gupta review on the economics of biodiversity remains an important priority for us in my time populations of animals on average have more than half around a million species now face extinction many within decades and it comes as no surprise that the first time ever environmental risks now fill the top five places of the world economic forums global risk report governments everywhere are currently designing their economic recovery packages in the wake of the covid-19 pandemic and in the uk our prime minister has committed to build back better and build back greener for example two weeks ago the chancellor of x checker announced that two billion pounds will be provided to support homeowners and landlords to make their homes more energy efficient this funding could support over a hundred thousand green jobs and through our international climate finance which we've committed to doubling up to 11.6 billion pounds we've established a green recovery challenge fund to support countries to design their recovery packages in a way that supports a green and resilient recovery and through our joint leadership of the recovering better for sustainability work stream under the un secretary generals financing for development initiative we will set out plans to enhance international cooperation to ensure a paris and sustainable development goals aligned recovery a green and resilient recovery will also be at the heart of our cop 26 presidency including the conservation and restoration of ecosystems through nature-based solutions to climate change which could provide a third of the mitigation action needed over the next decade these are global problems but with very real and devastating local impacts we all have a stake in collectively finding and implementing the solutions and so thank you all once again for today's discussion it's been very interesting listening to you and also reading the many comments in the chat bar it's given me a lot of food for thought and lots to discuss in the future and at future panels for the descriptive review and I hope it provides a platform for future collaboration following the publication of the review in the autumn so thank you all and thank you again sandy for giving me the opportunity to address everyone this afternoon great thank you so much minister sorry there's a slight delay in in unmuting so so thank you so much for sharing your insights there again I struck by your messages on the global local relationship and on the link between action on environment and the creation of jobs we certainly look forward to your continued support as we finalize the review and thank you again for joining us today and so I'm told that unfortunately Ambassador Yatani has been delayed so instead I'm going to ask Dr Julius Muya if he would speak on the ambassador's behalf Dr Muya it's an honor to have you join us here today and thank you also to the Kenyan Treasury support in hosting today's dialogue and Kenny's been a leader in innovative approaches to green finance including facilitating of course East Africa's first green bond last year so we very much look forward to hearing what you have to say thank you Hi good afternoon everyone I hope I can be heard well sandy thank you very much for this opportunity and I'm speaking on behalf of my minister who has had to rush somewhere for some meeting and I want to appreciate Honorable Kemi I've just listened to you and Honorable Francis Katare earlier on of course I had a single privilege of participating as a panelist and listening to Professor Dasgupta and so really mine on behalf of my minister is to appreciate everyone and also say listening in on this review on economics of diversity it is generating a very in-depth debate on advancing understanding of very key issues regarding the role of biodiversity in the economic development and especially in our region and in Africa as a whole where we should be looking for inclusive resilient and sustainable development and so really at the outset I want to thank the UK government in commissioning this report which to me I think it is groundbreaking in terms of what is being shared now and we are excited actually to see a very unique link being made between economics between livelihoods well-being and nature which in the past has not been the case so very well done and so for us in Kenya one of the things that we've been pushing through is the area of climate change where we did a study sometimes back and that study did inform a lot of the works that we've been doing because again Kenya has been affected in the past by related shocks and disasters such as droughts, floods, massive destruction and infrastructure relocations among others and so we expect that the findings from studies like this and the studies that we did earlier on will help in shaping current policy and our problematic actions both in Kenya and in the continent as a whole well we all know that human beings do rely a lot on nature and based on what professor has shared this is actually a fact about the food, the water we get, the shelter, the opportunities for recreation and many other fulfilment that we derived from nature and so we also know nature and from what has been shared about the amazon and many other places that's played a big role in regulating things like climate, controlling diseases and also maintaining some other cycles that sometimes we take for granted and so for us really is to appreciate that without nature really you wouldn't have life and if you don't have life you don't have any economics to talk about and so really given the challenge that we are all facing of this COVID situation I think we are being drawn to realise and recognise again the role that nature plays as we look at our livelihoods and how to improve our lives. It is therefore important as we engage in this and especially for the finance ministers who are involved here to understand the key role that biodiversity can play in the provision of services that we receive from nature and here we are looking at what we call the nature based solutions and the ecosystems that sometimes normal economics does not quantify and so the whole area of looking at diversity as a asset within that nature portfolio is something that to me and to us in treasure is exciting because it enables us to think about how we can increase the resilience to shocks and also reduce risks to the services on which we rely and so really this biodiversity debate that we are considering today should indeed become one of the parameters for our macroeconomic modelling while we calculate our prosperity I didn't want to say GDP but it's prosperity that perhaps could be a better choice and so I think the question of how to parameterise the issues that are important is one that we need to spend more time on and so we also recognise some of the key challenges that are facing us in Africa the question about our capacity to explore and come up with comprehensive policy and regulatory mechanisms so that we can be able to mainstream biodiversity into the government's work plans into our budgeting systems into a medium-term expenditure frameworks into our medium-term plans and this is important for us because these are the tools that we currently use in government for planning and so just looking at the whole area of biodiversity loss it's an area that to us is interesting to ask ourselves what do we lose by not taking care of biodiversity in terms of climate change challenges the losses that we can think about in terms of the deforestation in terms of the climate change situations that get worse and worse so for us in Kenya we also do recognise the fact that our economy does lay a lot on nature that is agriculture tourism energy and also the large extent infrastructure so nature is important for us because it's a major contributor and a platform in which our economy runs and so looking at ways in which we can minimise and reduce the risks and hazards relating to droughts relating to storm surges flooding and sea level rises and that could be interesting if we could even parameterise these losses and come up with them a universal and a green way of accounting for certain losses we also need to ask ourselves a question about the losses of biodiversity that our country and our continent keeps on getting challenged about we know about land and seas that we have and if we tie in innovations there is a possibility that we could be more resilient we could make our land and sea more useful in terms of sustainability by reducing pollution and also mitigate over exploitation of biological resources on the side of the financial services sector there is a lot that we could also think about in terms of tying in the framework of biodiversity to make sure that as we are raising funds and as we are raising resources in the financing sector we are able to address things that normal financing models do not address so in Kenya of course we have been engaging a lot on the area of green growth and this is based on our constitution and also a long-term development framework which we call vision 2030 we also have drafted various laws and regulations and the policies that are hinged on climate change and so for us really it is to work out with this groundbreaking study how we can build on climate change to come up with their frameworks policies and institutional structures which then can enable us exploit new opportunities that are emerging now if you look at our budget allocations lately we have also been looking to support the technical ministries that are related to nature the ministries of environment and forestry the ministries of tourism and wildlife and here we've been doing that just to recognize the fact that we need to support ministries that interact with the nature to enable us to innovate and upscale the support that we have for sectors in that region obviously Kenya has been participating in global conventions like the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity where we have committed to this convention to to tie in and support the initiatives and objectives of that convention and we've also been very very clear about making sure that we preserve our region diversity of plants of animals aquatic micro micro biological organisms given that Kenya is within the tropics and within the country you can start from the Indian Ocean where you've got a coastal climate and then go through the savannah we have desert we've got semi desert and in the high mountains you can also see a climate of a temperate nature so that which biodiversity is the one that would be looking to make sure that we preserve and and get the best out of them obviously dealing with the threats that we see coming on the way of diversity we have also identified excuse me a number of parks and nature reserves which have been set aside so that we can preserve biodiversity in those areas we call the big game parks and all of the country we have identified through spatial planning areas where we say those are for agriculture those are to be left as forests those are for urban settlements and so on and so forth and so given then that structure we've also have come up with institutions that address themselves to maintaining and preserving that biodiversity we've got our national museums of Kenya we've got our Kenya forestry research institute and many others that and are quite a number and then basically I think what I would say for these institutions is that we are strengthening them but again we need to get more resources so that we can be able to increase their institutional and human capacity in terms of further actions and the priority we are looking at improving our infrastructure our human capacity in viewing and harmonizing our policies in major institutions so that we can preserve biodiversity and so for us in our ministry and also in collaboration with the minister of environment and forestry we are looking at a new way of coding our budget and we've already actually started this where in our budgeting system we have adopted a coding system to track the flows and expenditures in respect of climate change mitigation and adaptation and this is within our if mis framework so that we can be able to start piloting the recommendations of the professor Das Gupta's report and so moving forward we want just to reaffirm our deep commitment in Kenya in continuing to support measures which I get towards the conservation of biodiversity because we recognize this to be a major nebler of our country's development and so the government is putting a lot of emphasis in this area. It is also the case that as we are doing this we would like here to appeal and request the UK government and African Development Bank to continue lending support and taking a lead role to collaborate with the African countries to mobilize substantial resources to support the implementation of Professor Das Gupta's recommendation and this should be also one of the ways in which we should be dealing with this pandemic of COVID and so really we should be looking then to first track what has been shared in the Das Gupta report from the short term going to the long term and coming up with frameworks that can enable us to implement what could be done fairly quickly. Now in terms of the closing remarks now what I would put here this is what the minister would say is that there are some areas where clarity could also be focused and one of the questions that the minister posed is what would be the best way of increasing public finance to catalyze and leverage resources towards enhanced support to biodiversity conservation and sustainable management and to improve productive and quality investments in an environment where development finance has been declining. The second item that needs clarity is that this need develop or review existing laws, regulations and the policies in order to accelerate investments that promote and protect biodiversity. The third and the last one and indeed not the least is what are the key capacity needs that are needed to advance the implementation of the recommendations of the Das Gupta report especially in Africa and so in conclusion we would like to thank the UK government again and ministers who have participated the Development Bank and Das Gupta team I listened to them the Stockholm Environment Institute and all the participants who have been part of this event and also my colleagues in Treasury and UK for planning and coordinating the hosting of this event which is showing our commitment in Africa as we are mainstreaming by diversity to finance the sustainable development cause. So I thank you and I wish you a nice afternoon. Thank you. Wonderful thank you so much Dr Maria great to hear your further reflections and also from your minister. As you said I mean you said many helpful things there but one of the things I was struck by was that there's a key question for us on how to translate what the science is telling us about the loss of nature or what we can see happening on the ground and of course the framework of the Das Gupta review but how we translate all of that into action and you mentioned several policy instruments there regulation but also more broadly economic development plans for the medium term finance and the like and I suspect we're going to need all of them and more so very helpful insights thank you. So if I may then I'm going to just briefly offer some closing remarks I'll then hand over to Peter to end I'll keep them very very brief conscious that we're a little over time so as I said at the outset and in the context of the current pandemic the link between nature our health and our economies has never been clearer making this review and its main concepts all the more relevant. Huge thank you again to the Kenyan National Treasury the Stockholm Institute for convening today's dialogue and to the Africa Development Bank who helped make today happen and of course thank you to Professor Das Gupta himself for his intellectual leadership on this. We're especially grateful today to the panelists for sharing their diverse range of regional experience and expertise with us and last but not least thank you to everyone on the call that's participated. Collectively you provided much food for thought as we work with Professor Das Gupta to finalize the review in the coming weeks and although we haven't had time to go through all of the questions and comments in the chat box today rest assured we will be taking those away and reflecting on them so thank you. We are also looking for good examples and case studies to illustrate the concepts discussed today so if you're someone who's working on a relevant project or you want to share information with us about a good example please do so we'll put our email address in the chat box it's also in the interim report and finally to echo the message from my minister we very much hope that today has provided a platform for the UK's continued engagement and collaboration with countries in the region to continue to work together and address the issues raised by the review. Let me then hand over back to Peter to close today's event thanks Peter. Thank you thank you very much I hope I can be heard. Yes thank you very much for this rich interaction which we have been having over the last 100 hours but before I say a few words I would like to recognize the presence of Professor Ntibah who is our PS responsible for fisheries and blue economy. This indeed shows the Kenyan commitment at the highest level possible that transiting from the conventional way of doing things or handling our economy is at the center of the government at the policy level. There are also a number of colleagues from the UN bodies and also Africa commission that are just joining us and that shows that surely the economics of biodiversity and at this time when we are having a challenge of the new disease in the home and in the continent and in the world is really important. Each discussion from the technical people honorable ministers who are the policy directs gives a clear indication that the African continent is awake is ready and gearing to go and what came out from the professor's presentation which has dig deeper into the key elements of the economics of biodiversity which needs us to move is simply that the local community becomes the centrality of how biodiversity conservation should be undertaken to the next level. Paradigm safety, all the economic models, policies that are destroyed and the people are ready to move toward their goal as we are closing today we only need to remember what professor said the biosphere is crying no life no economy no future and if it is at this time that we need the completion of this report today not tomorrow so that we in Africa we can start the the work. Kenya is ahead, Kenya is putting its own money but we need support. Ladies and gentlemen I thank you all the work is just started for the technical people civil society organizations have spoken the private sector have spoken the science have spoken it is now a responsibility of the treasuries finance to make this change that we desire now and not tomorrow thank you very much in view of this I would therefore like to call upon Dr. Philip Pozano so that if he has got some announcements to make thank you very much thank you thank you Peter thank you every colleagues I don't have anything else to add except to thank all of you for participating and to let you know that we will get back to you with a report and proceedings of this event and also in terms of when the final report comes out as to how to follow through with that and also to recognize and thank and appreciate the African Development Bank particularly Dr. Kosmos or Ching who is the head of the Natural Resources Center for facilitating this process thank you so much and I therefore declare this event completed