Moldova Green Shield: Enhancing Resilience through Ecosystem-based Adaptation

Droughts and floods are straining the rain-fed farmland of southern Moldova, where degraded soils, fragmented shelterbelts and low forest cover have weakened the landscape's ability to hold water. The 2022 drought alone caused losses estimated at USD 200 million.

The project will restore ecosystems across the nine rural districts of the Southern Development Region. It will strengthen national and local institutions, planning tools and environmental monitoring, and finance the restoration of forests, shelterbelts, riparian systems, wetlands and silvopastoral land. Local communities, including women and vulnerable groups, will take on stewardship of restored sites and develop climate-resilient livelihoods that keep them maintained. Geospatial and hydrological modelling and early warning systems will guide where and how restoration takes place.

Restoration delivers public benefits such as water regulation but few direct financial returns, so commercial capital and sovereign borrowing cannot fund it at scale; GCF grant finance fills that gap. The project treats forests, farmland and wetlands as one landscape rather than isolated sites, and its planning tools have potential for replication elsewhere. It is Moldova's first single-country GCF project.