This meta-synthesis of national climate change adaptation plans, policies and processes spans twelve countries at various stages of adaptation planning and implementation, in three priority CCAFS regions: West Africa (Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Sénegal), East Africa (Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda) and South Asia (Bangladesh, India, Nepal). The national adaptation plan (NAP) process was established in the Cancún Adaptation Framework by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to help facilitate effective medium- and long-term adaptation planning and implementation in developing countries, and in particular Least Developed Countries (LDCs). The scope of this review focused primarily on climate adaptation in the agriculture sector, but also included consideration of related sectors, such as water, forests and land use.
In order to provide a coherent basis for analysis of adaptation processes across all twelve countries and the relationships between national policies and plans and strategies for adapting to climate challenges, an analytical framework was developed. The framework allows for a ‘dashboard’ view of country progress on key NAP process and policy elements, and can continue to be useful as countries develop and refine their adaptation approaches over time. The countries reviewed are in various stages of developing national strategies to address climate change adaptation. For some countries, NAPs may not represent a significant shift from current practice, however for the majority of countries reviewed, NAPs can provide an important means of focusing climate adaptation planning and response measures.
Assessing the twelve countries against the analytic framework provided insights into where countries might take further steps to strengthen their national adaption process, as well as identification of common needs across the countries reviewed. Recommendations for national policy makers, agriculture sector practitioners seeking to shape national adaptation planning processes, CCAFS and research organizations, and the donor community include:
Strengthen capacity to project climate risks, rank such risks, and prioritize response activities. The limitations of current information systems points to many countries needing better information on regional variations and future projections of vulnerability and risk. Further, improving the understanding of the economic impacts of climate risks is critical and currently lacking.
Gi Given the multiple scales, diversity and complexity in governance, finance, and range of actors involved in defining adaptation solutions, attention to downward accountability and adaptive institutions will be critical. Ongoing assessment of institutional frameworks for adaptation planning and implementation that can effectively coordinate and implement a holistic national adaptation plan will be critical at all levels.
§ I It is important to define long-term solutions for adaptation planning and implementation funding that is sufficient and geared towards building strong institutions and capacity. Funding for the formulation of NAPs should be additional, specific and separate to funding for implementation.
§ Linking adaptation assessments into policy development creates a unique capacity challenge, which countries should address at all NAP stages. In particular, it is critical to strengthen analytic capacity for integrated approaches to adaptation planning that a) considers combinations of crop, livestock, rangeland, forestry, fishery and agroforestry activities, as well as aquatic and ecosystem function needs and b) helps define adaptation and mitigation synergies, which countries often cite interest to identify, but are more challenged to define.
§ Focus policy analysis and action towards integrating adaptation strategies into development objectives and existing sectoral policies. Enable funding for implementation partially through national budgetary allocations, which can decrease dependence on unpredictable donor finance, while securing stronger political support for, and success in, implementation.
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