Overview
African Natural Capital Alliance (ANCA)
The African Natural Capital Alliance (ANCA) is a collaborative forum for mobilising the financial community’s response to the risk of nature loss in Africa.
We bring together a core group of financial institutions, governmental organisations, intergovernmental partners, and civil society representatives. This group is joined by a wider set of members from both the public and private sectors who support the ANCA’s aim of ensuring better integration of nature into financial decision making.
The alliance was established by FSD Africa and has support from the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and the United Kingdom’s Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA).
We are also working with the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) in order to provide an African voice in the development of TNFD’s reporting framework for nature-related risk and opportunities.
What is natural capital?
Nature is our most precious asset. We depend on it for food and water, health and wellbeing, as well as economic growth and stability. Every business at some level depends on resources or services provided by nature, such as crops, fish, timber, fibre or rare earth elements. When the health and stability of ecosystems is disrupted, the impact across both society and the economy can be disastrous.
We should therefore think of nature in similar terms to financial, manufactured, or human capital. In fact, with almost a quarter of Africa’s GDP linked to sectors dependent on nature, every development pathway for the continent will rely on responsible management of natural capital.
The link between nature-loss and climate-change
While our attention is rightly focused on attempts to mitigate or adapt to climate change the equally catastrophic effects of nature-loss may seem less of a priority. But, in fact, the climate crisis and nature-loss are inextricably linked.
All paths to net-zero require the large-scale removal of carbon from the atmosphere and the only affordable and immediately available methods of doing this are in nature. On the other hand, climate change poses one of the greatest threats to ecosystems. The IPCC has warned that, in the face of climate change, maintaining the resilience of biodiversity and ecosystem services at a global scale depends on effective and equitable conservation of approximately 30% to 50% of Earth’s land, freshwater and ocean areas
Nowhere is this interdependency clearer than in Africa, which is among the regions of the world most vulnerable to climate change and most dependent on nature.
Our mission
Our mission is to ensure policies and practices at financial institutions, companies, regulators, and policymakers integrate the risks and opportunities tied to Africa’s natural capital. By creating the capacity and conditions for the finance sector to reflect the true value of nature, we strive to shift capital from destructive activities for short-term gain to long-term stewardship for sustainable economic growth.
What is natural capital?
Through our engagement with policymakers, businesses, and the finance sector, we provide a channel for African stakeholders to shape the development of TNFD and other efforts to integrate natural capital into the global financial system. Ongoing feedback from our members and testing of the TNFD framework is vital for ensuring future approaches to disclosure are applicable in the African contexts.
Engaging the finance sector
We work with financial institutions based or operating in Africa to better understand and reflect the connection of their portfolios to nature-related risks and opportunities. This includes testing TNFD’s draft framework for nature-related disclosure among a group of Champions for African Natural Capital. These financial institutions will gather data and learnings from their pilots, helping to shape the future integration of nature across portfolios in Africa and beyond.
Enabling an evolution in policy
We are advocates for nature as our most important asset. Working across public and private sectors, we support approaches to policy, regulation, and investment that maximise the opportunities for sustainable growth from and for Africa’s natural capital. By sharing best practices among organisations and providing technical support to decision makers, we help create an environment in which finance can flow to nature and generate economic opportunity across the continent.
What is natural capital?
Through our engagement with policymakers, businesses, and the finance sector, we provide a channel for African stakeholders to shape the development of TNFD and other efforts to integrate natural capital into the global financial system. Ongoing feedback from our members and testing of the TNFD framework is vital for ensuring future approaches to disclosure are applicable in the African contexts.
