African Leaders Push for New Metrics to Accurately Capture Green Wealth

African Leaders Push for New Metrics to Accurately Capture Green Wealth

In a bold call for global economic reform, African leaders are urging a complete overhaul of how their nations' wealth is measured, stressing that outdated metrics like traditional Gross Domestic Product (GDP) calculations significantly undervalue Africa's vast natural assets. Speaking at a high-level event hosted by the African Union Commission and the African Development Bank Group (AfDB) at the African Union Mission to the United States, leaders pressed for immediate action. The event took place on the sidelines of the 2025 Spring Meetings of the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington, D.C.

A Call for Action: Turning Words into Deeds

Ambassador Hilda Suka-Mafudze, Permanent Representative of the African Union Mission to the U.S., emphasized the urgency of transitioning from pledges to tangible action. "We need to invest in our systems of national accounts," she said. "If we want accurate measures of our wealth and create stores of assets, we can leverage them to drive shared prosperity and sustainable development."

Leaders highlighted the critical role of investing in updated national accounting systems that accurately reflect Africa's natural capital—including forests, biodiversity, water resources, and ecosystem services.

Revealing the Hidden Wealth: Findings from the African Development Bank

Professor Kevin Urama, AfDB Chief Economist and Vice President, presented the key findings from the 2024 African Development Bank Group report Measuring the Green Wealth of Nations: Natural Capital and Economic Productivity in Africa. The study revealed that simply factoring in the carbon sequestration services provided by African forests would have added $66.1 billion to the continent's GDP in 2022, an expansion of approximately 2.2%.

Urama stressed that Africa's green wealth—estimated at $6.2 trillion in 2018—remains largely invisible under current accounting practices. Africa holds 26% of global forest-based carbon capture potential while contributing a mere 4% to global carbon emissions, highlighting the continent's outsized role in sustaining global ecological health.

He emphasized that traditional GDP measures often ignore crucial components such as ecosystem services and the informal economy. Revaluing these contributions through Natural Capital Accounting (NCA) and adopting the updated 2025 System of National Accounts (SNAs) could significantly boost African countries' GDP figures and unlock new pathways to sustainable finance.

"This is not just about correcting statistics," Urama explained. "It's about ensuring comparability across nations and making Africa's economic strength fully visible to the global financial system."

Concrete Examples: The Potential Impact on African Economies

Citing AfDB figures, Ambassador Suda-Mafudze noted that updating national accounts to include forest-based carbon sequestration alone would dramatically boost GDP in several countries:

• Côte d'Ivoire: +38.2%

• Benin: +36.7%

• Niger: +33.5%

Such revisions could drastically improve these countries' national risk profiles, making them more attractive for foreign investment and enabling greater access to international financing mechanisms such as green bonds and climate resilience funds.

Madagascar's Minister of Economy and Finance, Rindra Rabarinirinarison, emphasized the importance of robust technological and capacity-building support. She shared that Madagascar is piloting projects to value its abundant natural resources more accurately. "Madagascar is a rich country but not rich," she remarked, underlining the irony that despite vast biodiversity and natural capital, economic indicators paint a starkly different picture.

Strategic Reforms Ahead of COP30

The push to redefine Africa's economic identity comes ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) scheduled for November 2025 in Belém, Brazil. African leaders intend to present a united front to demand reforms to the global economic and financial architecture, ensuring that it recognizes and rewards Africa's environmental stewardship.

Nigerien Prime Minister Ali Lamine Zeine urged African nations to seize the opportunity to reshape their narratives. "Africa is underestimated. We must work strategically to change this," he said during a panel discussion on the implementation of updated national accounts.

Support from Global Institutions

Erich Strassner of the IMF's Statistics Department endorsed the AfDB's report as "transformational" and reaffirmed the IMF's commitment to collaborate with the AfDB, World Bank, and national governments to operationalize the report's recommendations.

"The goal is to prioritize actions in each country so that together we can implement a system that values natural capital properly," Strassner said.

The African Development Bank also announced several initiatives to support this transition:

• Development of standardized methodologies for natural capital valuation.

• Integration of environmental sustainability goals with broader national policies.

• Training programs for local experts across Africa.

• Support for countries to monetize their environmental benefits in global carbon markets.

Additionally, the AfDB will host a new African Natural Capital Accounting Community of Practice, serving as a collaborative platform for knowledge sharing, capacity development, and technical assistance.

A Transformative Moment for African Economies

Prof. Victor Murinde, Executive Secretary of the African Economic Research Consortium, hailed the report as a "bold step" in addressing methodological gaps in GDP measurement. "Its recommendations provide a rich foundation for economists to refine the tools used to assess national wealth," he said.

The movement to revamp Africa's wealth accounting marks a critical moment, not only for economic development but also for climate justice. As African countries work to integrate natural capital into their financial systems, they seek to correct long-standing inequities and ensure that their contributions to global public goods are recognized and rewarded.

In the words of Vice President Urama, "This is a smart investment that can deliver low-hanging fruit for Africa's sustainable development journey."

African Leaders Push for New Metrics to Accurately Capture Green Wealth
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