In El Salvador, 74% of ecosystems support food production, mainly staple grains, pasture, and coffee, while approximately 65% of the territory is hillside areas, with slopes steeper than 15%. Monoculture and inadequate soil management are provoking a steady degradation of the country’s natural resources (e.g., soil and water), which in turn increases vulnerability to climate change. That is why, in 2012, El Salvador has set an ambitious goal to restore 1 million ha as part of its flagship Program for Ecosystem and Landscape Restoration. El Salvador has made progress towards that goal, having restored 280.000 ha from 2012 to 20217.

The goal of this proposal is to enhance El Salvador’s capacities to implement actions on ecosystem restoration. This project will build technical capacities for the design of climate finance proposals, design financial instruments for ecosystem restoration, generate knowledge on climate impacts on ecosystem services and on the benefits from restoration, and improve the coordination at the subnational level to plan and implement restoration at scale. The results from the Readiness grant will inform the development of a concept note on ecosystem restoration to be submitted to the GCF.