'"Natural Capital in Carolina's Kitchen" is the first in a series of blogs focused on natural capital, including national strategies for integrating natural capital into development plans and actions to scale up investment in ecological infrastructure.
Carolina Lalane is a Mozambican entrepreneur, mother of seven and community dynamo. She spearheaded the drive to get piped-water and electricity into her locality where most people rely on cassava farming and fishing in the Bay of Inhambane to feed their families.
In her colourful capulanas Carolina uses water and electricity to serve up matapa to tourists, a dish of the earthy-green cassava leaf, peanut, coconut and fish caught from salty dugout canoes. But getting the ingredients for matapa is becoming tougher. Population growth—coupled with migration from the interior to the coast in search of jobs and services like electricity—is increasing pressure on natural assets. Over the past three years drought has become a serious additional stressor in southern Africa, costing 50,000 permanent farm jobs in South Africa’s Western Cape. In Carolina’s community, harvests of cassava are yielding fingerlings instead of fat root-tubers. Her neighbours have been forced to fish more and expand cassava cultivation, hitting soil health and fishery stocks.
On a crowded planet, the limiting economic factor for prosperity is not financial capital; it is natural capital. The Global Risk Report 2018, highlighted climate and environment among the top 5 global risks. Pressure is increasing on the very natural assets, like the fisheries in the Bay of Inhambane, that Carolina needs for her business.
Conventional investment analysis and financing tends to omit natural capital in a fragmented project-by-project approach. Adding a natural capital systems lens reveals the underlying network of ecological infrastructure—such as rivers, soils, forests, reefs—that affect the long-term risk-return profile of multiple investments. Ecological infrastructure could become an emerging investment frontier powering inclusive development in the 21st century.
The Government of Mozambique is setting up a national Natural Capital Program, one of the first in Africa, in a pioneering effort to put Resilient Ecological Infrastructure Networks on the map as legally protected assets for food, water, energy and climate security. The African Development Bank and WWF have partnered with the Government in this ambitious mission along with collaborators from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research; the Natural Capital Project; Columbia University; Third Way Africa (impact investors); Seedstars (a global start-up platform); and Standard Bank. Globally, the Green Growth Knowledge Platform’s multi-agency Working Group on Natural Capital is catalysing the sharing of experience gained by pioneers like Mozambique, Myanmar, China, and the Arctic; a clear lesson from these initiatives is the need for multiple institutional champions and more than one Government cycle to put policy in place. Leaders from private and public sector will be presenting the latest learning and developments in natural capital investment and planning approaches at the Natural Capital Symposium, taking place March 19th-22nd, 2018 at Stanford University, USA.
If Uber and Airbnb can connect millions of travellers and service providers, what could similar business models do to connect ecological infrastructure stewards with global consumers? Collaborating with tech entrepreneurs and private investors to enhance natural capital could create long-term value for all. Carolina and the world’s kitchens are waiting.
The opinions expressed herein are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official views of the GGKP or its Partners.