The UN-REDD Programme welcomed Ecuador as a partner country in October 2009, and approved a US$ 4 million funding allocation to Ecuador’s National Programme in March 2011.

Progress against the Warsaw Framework for REDD+

Building on Ecuador’s results under the National Programme (completed in 2014), targeted support has been provided to meet specific support gaps emerging by time. Being a country in an advanced stage of its REDD+ readiness phase, support is being provided to assist the country to enter the implementation phase of REDD+ activities for results based finance. The coordination with other funding sources and national and global initiatives is a high priority.

National REDD+ Strategy/Action Plan
Support for the finalization of the draft National Action Plan and the associated implementation including a financial architecture was approved in 2015 and is in implementation phase. In 2016, this targeted support will allow Ecuador to submit its REDD+ Action Plan to the UNFCCC. By doing so Ecuador will fulfil one of the four pillars of REDD+ Readiness. Additionally, Ecuador developed and finalized gender capacity-building, issue-diagnosis and mainstreaming tools to catalyze gender responsive action REDD+ implementation.

Forest Reference Emission Level / Forest Reference Level (FREL/FRL)
Ecuador developed and submitted its FREL/FRL to UNFCCC, with targeted support from the Programme. The first draft of the Technical Annex of REDD + for the Biennial Report Update (BUR) was also developed and technically supported.

National Forest Monitoring System (NFMS)
The country progress on institutional arrangements for structuring the National GHG Inventory System and the National GHG inventory system was designed (estimates for Agriculture and LULUFC 2010 base year in the GHG inventory). The allometric models methodology was developed and progress was made on defining process to systematize all the information developed during the NP phase. They attended several trainings on SLMS, indicating a clearly high level of technical capacity on remote sensing in-country.

Safeguards and Safeguards Information System (SIS)
Following the completed NP, a targeted support is assisting the country to progress on its safeguards subcomponent of the national REDD+ strategy. Goals, indicators and expected results, and actions to promote and respect safeguards and to implement the SIS were identified, such as:

• Safeguards criteria and SIS information requirements for REDD+ implementation instruments related to institutional, legal, policy and finance frameworks were identified and adjusted.
• Mapping of existing national information systems relevant to SIS report/development of the Summary of information (SoI) was updated which is vital for completing development and initiating implementation of the SIS, including institutional arrangements for its operation.
• Technical meetings and workshops focused on collecting recommendations for addressing and respecting safeguards during implementation of national REDD+ strategy.
• Progress made on the development and revision of SIS communications documents and linkages of safeguards with other REDD+ processes.

In 2016, this targeted support will allow Ecuador to submit its summary of information directly to the UNFCCC REDD+ Web Platform. By doing so Ecuador will fulfil one of the four pillars of REDD+ Readiness.