The Green Climate Fund (GCS), the main global fund to finance actions to fight climate change, will allocate $35.8 million to a FAO-designed project in El Salvador's Dry Corridor aimed at building climate-change resilience in farming systems. The funding agreement was signed today at FAO headquarters in Rome.
The five-year $127.7 million RECLIMA project seeks to strengthen resilience of smallholder farmers, who are often on the frontline of climate change impacts, by promoting climate adaptation measures such as the use of seeds tolerant to drought.
In addition to the GCF grant, the project will receive $91.8 million from the Salvadoran Government and the Initiative for the Americas Fund (FIAES).
"This is the second fully-fledged Agreement that FAO signs with the Green Climate Fund this month," said FAO Assistant Director-General for Programme Support and Technical Cooperation, Roberto Ridolfi. "We want to build on this momentum to consolidate our joints efforts in dealing with climate change effects in the world and supporting the sustainable management of agriculture systems and natural resources. We also agreed to work together towards leveraging GCF resources with other public and private investors."
Building resilience of smallholder farmers
In El Salvador's Dry Corridor, an area that suffers severe droughts, floods and tropical storms, more than two million people live in poverty and climate vulnerability, with more than half of them depending on the production of basic grains as their main livelihood.
RECLIMA aims to support 50,000 family farmers, who account for almost 15 percent of all family farmers in the country, through transforming their productive practices, improving their basic infrastructure and technical knowledge to build fully sustainable and resilient food systems. Such efforts are expected to benefit around 225,000 vulnerable people, including those from indigenous communities.
RECLIMA also envisages improving agricultural extension systems and promoting a landscape approach to provide ecosystem services through the restoration of 17,000 hectares of degraded land. In addition, close to 4,000 families stand to benefit from better access to water through the capture, storage and distribution of rainwater.
FAO is leading the formulation of several other full-scale GCF projects across all continents for submission to the GCF Secretariat during the forthcoming months.
