1. Module II.2 Institutions for National Adaptation Planning Trainer: [Name]

2. Overview of this module
Clear institutional arrangements for NAPs are essential from the outset
Institutions have a role in delivering specific NAP outcomes, such as coordination and prioritisation
There are likely to be a number of key institutions that need to be involved (stakeholders)
There are barriers that institutions commonly face in delivering NAP outcomes
Yet these barriers have tried and tested solutions: how are ‘you’ addressing those barriers?
Participants will learn about: the role and importance of national institutions in adaptation planning; the main institutional barriers to adaptation planning; and possible response strategies drawn from best practice experience. All this is set within the context of the dynamic interplay that exists between organisations, ideas, people and actions.

3. What can you expect to learn from this session?
The key roles that public sector institutions should play in national adaptation planning and budgeting;
Who the main stakeholders are likely to be and their interests;
The most common institutional barriers to adaptation planning and how these can be overcome.
By the end of this module participants will have:
-Engaged in practical discussions on the key roles that public sector institutions should play in national adaptation planning and budgeting (slides 2, 4, and 5);
-Understood the roles and interests of different stakeholders (slide 3 and 6);
-Identified common institutional barriers to adaptation planning as well effective ways of overcoming selected barriers (slides 7, 8 and case study).

4. NAP-relevant institutions
Cabinet/senate/parliament
Lead agency
Departments and ministries
Key sectors: Planning, Finance, Local Government
National coordinating committee
Technical group
Wider reference group
National adaptation planning is not a one-time activity and it touches upon many sectors simultaneously (e.g. agriculture, water supply, infrastructure, health). It is a dynamic process influenced both by climatic and non-climatic factors, such as demographic change and the socio-political environment. Decision makers and planners operating in this challenging context are highly dependent on the services of effective institutions with clearly delineated responsibilities and functions, backed by the necessary individual knowledge and skills (see also Module IV.1 on capacity development).

5. The primary role of NAP institutions is to coordinate different actors at multiple levels to achieve two key outcomes:
Enabling factors
Consensus on adaptation priorities (Key actor: Ministry of Planning or Economy);
Sharing of knowledge for decision-making (Key actor: Research and Training institutions).
Coordination is one of the most fundamental services that institutions can provide for NAPs, helping decision makers to engage with all key players for critical tasks, such as prioritization and budget allocation. Getting early consensus on what really counts is fundamental because it determines the level of ownership of the NAP process that different parties will have going forward. Achieving this consensus will be dependent on some kind of institutional mechanism, such as a cross sectoral committee backed by technical working groups, perhaps led by the ministry of planning or the ministry of environment and climate change. Ideally national level coordination functions for adaptation would be addressed at the sub national level, the specific arrangements varying according to size and level of administrative and financial independence of that authority.
For example, where and country’s planning and decision making processes already make provisions for engagement from non-state actors, then coordination and knowledge sharing for NAPs is likely to be broader based, more inclusive and reflecting the needs of all interest groups.
Key question for participants:
Which of the enabling factors listed above do you think is the most important for your country, and why?
Information and knowledge sharing is a further key function of NAP institutions. Adaptation planning is only as good as the quality of information available on climate change risks, vulnerabilities and impacts. In many countries much of this information is already available but tends to be scattered among multiple organizations, often with few incentives in place for it to be shared. National research and training institutions can play a key role here – helping to transform information into higher value ‘knowledge’ products, for example by establishing information centres that synthesize and translate the current state of climate science on risks, impacts and adaptation options into relevant knowledge applicable to specific policy sectors.
Institutional factors enabling effective NAP coordination and knowledge sharing are likely include; levels of leadership; degree of inclusiveness; and the particularities of national governance and planning structures in place (the ‘localization factor’). The interplay between these three influences the overall sense of ‘ownership’ that can be attributed to NAPs, as indicated in the Figure.

6. How institutions lay the groundwork for effective NAPs
Steps
Activities
Outcomes
Element A: Laying the Ground Work (NAP Guidelines)
Initiating and launching the NAP process
Designate coordinating mechanism
Create a national vision and mandate
Enhanced ability to prioritise through establishment of a multi-stakeholder committee (Example 1)
Stocktaking: identifying available information
Synthesize available knowledge on climate impacts
Relevant information and knowledge freely available to all sectors through the establishment of a national database (Example 2)
The LDC Expert Group Technical Guidelines on National Adaptation Planning (2012) points to the importance and centrality of a clear institutional set up during the earliest stages of NAP development, in order to deliver on important planning outcomes, as illustrated in the table.
These activities shown are particularly dependent on an effective institutional set up for NAPs. If implemented the outcomes indicated in the right hand column, can be expected. For example the establishment of a multi-stakeholders committee on climate change can provide key NAP institutions with political and operational mandate to coordinate climate change adaptation at the national level, enhancing overall ownership and producing a shared vision on NAP priorities across sectors.
Key question for participants:
In your view, how can institutions facilitate the development and use of knowledge?
Source: Adapted from UNFCCC - LEG (2012), NAP Technical Guidelines.
Source: Adapted from UNFCCC – LEG, 2012; NAP Technical Guidelines.

7. Example 1: national stakeholder coordination in Indonesia
Indonesia’s National Council on Climate Change (DNPI) provides for multi-stakeholder and cross-sectoral coordination on climate change issues.
During 2012 and 2013, fifteen government sectors engaged
in developing and agreeing a National Climate Change Learning Strategy for the country.
Example 1 - Enhanced coordination through the establishment of a multi-stakeholder committee.
The UN Climate Change Learn project in Indonesia (UNCC:Learn) benefits from a multi-stakeholder and cross-sectoral coordination mechanism. The objective of the project is to develop and implement more systematic and results oriented approaches to climate change learning, in support of national policy objectives. The project is implemented under the leadership of the National Council of Climate Change (DNPI) and engages with 15 different government sectors. The coordination mechanism involves not only government sectors, but also the UN Country Team ensuring alignment with existing UN-climate change programmes. Non-governmental stakeholders such as universities, training institutions and CSOs and some province administrations have also contributed to the dialogues. In addition to providing overall leadership for the process, DNPI provides secretariat functions through a small team located on Council premises ensuring effective project management and follow up. The Chair of the Council is the Presidential spokesperson and adviser on climate change, ensuring high level political support, alignment and integration with national planning.
Source: UN CC: Learn, 2013

8. Example 2: sharing climate information in Mali
When more climate information was needed by farmers about when and what to plant under changing climatic conditions, Met services, the Ministry of Agriculture and researchers collaborated with farmers to form a though a multidisciplinary working group, responsible synthesising information on weather patterns.
Example 2 – Synthesized information and knowledge through the establishment of a national database on climate change vulnerabilities and impacts, readily available to, and understandable by, planners and decision makers.
It is widely recognised that the availability of data and information alone is not sufficient to generate policy-useful knowledge. Institutions can help to collect and organize information and then shape it in ways that enhance the quality and timeliness of decision making.
For example where weather forecasting has been successfully applied it has often been for organisational reasons, such as (i) the creation of fora or networks where forecasters and potential users can come together; or (ii) the presence of institutional support for incorporation of climate considerations in planning. In Mali multidisciplinary working groups have been established to help farmers make better decisions about when and what to plant their crops. These groups, made up of members from the meteorological service, the Ministry of Agriculture, agricultural research institutes, rural development agencies, farmers, and the media, helped to facilitate discussion, determine user needs, and translate seasonal forecasts into a useful form (Kandlikar et al., 2011).
Key question for participants:
What in your view helps to make cross sectoral committees work best?
Source: UN Photo, 2013

9. A mix of NAP stakeholders to consider
Thorough stakeholder engagement at several levels provides an essential starting point for the NAP process, ensuring much needed buy in both from the political level, the bureaucracy and important non state actors. The Figure shows the way in which different stakeholder groups engage across different sectors and tiers of government, The Rubik’s cube analogy is an accurate one reflecting the dynamic and constantly changing interplay between its three main axis. The three stakeholder groups indicated in fact operate at all tiers of government and in all sectors of interest.
Key question for participants:
What’s missing from this diagram?
Source: NAP Malawi, 2014.

10. An example NAP process with key stakeholders
Once a country decides to embark on a NAP process it will be important to articulate how it will be lead and who should be involved. NAP’s are likely to include political level structures (such as parliamentary committees), executive bodies (such as national councils on climate change) and the bureaucracy (such as sectors and sub-national bodies), as illustrated in the Figure . Expert groups and advisory bodies can bring in the views of non-government organisations, academia and the private sector. The NAP Technical Guidelines (2012) provides an example NAP process with the main institutions and stakeholders listed in the left hand column.
Key question for participants:
What makes civil society an important stakeholder in NAP processes?
Source: UNFCCC – LEG, 2012; NAP Technical Guidelines.

11. Zoom-in the NAP process: steering function
Source: UNFCCC – LEG, 2012; NAP Technical Guidelines.

12. Institutional challenges and barriers for NAPs
Fragmented national mandates on climate change;
Uninformed viewpoints leading to polarized positions;
Patchy political support from parliamentarians and thought leaders;
Uncertainty over financial resources leads to loss of interest;
Skewed availability of technical knowledge to handle climate change;
Levels of communication and dialogue across government on climate change.
Some of the most commonly experienced institutional barriers in developing countries which are likely to affect climate change adaptation planning include:
1. Fragmented national mandates on climate change – historically responsibilities for climate change have been distributed between environment, energy, industry, agriculture and planning ministries, while technical functions are sometimes outsourced to research institutes;
2. Limited communication and dialogue across government – a tendency that characterizes environmental issues more generally but which is equally true in the case of climate change adaptation, and is commonly attributed to weak mandates of ministries with lead responsibility for climate change;
3. Skewed availability of technical skills and knowledge -traditionally Ministries of environment have been the main repository of knowledge of climate change – knowledge which needs to be shared more widely across all stakeholders if an effective NAP process is to be put in place;
4. Patchy or intermittent political support from parliamentarians and thought leaders - Political support from central government is decisive for initiating, mainstreaming and sustaining momentum for climate adaptation planning and implementation;
5. Perceived conflicts of interest linked to the climate change agenda - Climate change issues can sometimes be characterised simplistically in terms of the traditional ‘environment versus development debate’, which glosses over the fundamental interdependencies between the two, views which are frequently held and repeated at the highest level, without being effectively challenged;
6. Uncertainty over financial resources for climate change – while there is much talk about climate finance, securing it is often much more time consuming and difficult to achieve in practice.
Key question for participants:
Which is the most important challenge you are facing in your country?
What is the main challenge faced in your country?

13. Responding to institutional challenges
Issue 1:
Fragmented mandate
Response:
Use and strengthen existing coordination frameworks as much as possible
Issue 2:
Resource allocation
Engage high-level support from the outset; reach out to spending ministries
Issue 3:
Skewed knowledge
Be systematic about skills development and engage national training institutions
Issue 4:
Limited dialogue
Lead entity engage key stakeholders early; be proactive; strong secretariat functions
There is a growing body of knowledge on how to overcome these challenges, particularly by strengthening incentives for cross government awareness, information sharing and coordination. Experience from the One UN Climate Change Learning Partnership (UNCC:Learn) offers four specific examples as presented in the Figure and further elaborated below.
Issue 1 – Fragmented mandate – Malawi
In Malawi the UNCC: Learn project offers a working example of institutional coordination for which success factors have been:
Establishing a lead agency within government as early as possible;
Ensuring that this lead agency has the capacity to be inclusive (from national to local level, across sectors and between government other stakeholders);
Building as far as possible on existing institutional mechanisms of coordination (such as national committees, technical groups or financing arrangements) to avoid any fragmentation of mandates on climate change;
Putting in place strong secretariat functions within lead climate change entity, particularly in terms of project management, so that work plans are agreed, delivered and reported on systematically – some countries contract this out to consultants and there are advantages and disadvantages in doing this.
Issue 2 – Resource allocation – Dominican Republic
Through the UNCC: Learn Project Dominican Republic is taking a strategic and results-oriented approach to climate change learning. The process has been championed by the Vice President bringing national visibility, and this was instrumental in a decision by the Ministry of Education to allocate national budgetary resources to support the role out of a teacher training programme on climate change across all provinces. Success factors have been:
High-level visibility and support at the political level;
Creating inclusive and participatory spaces for multi-sectoral dialogue;
Using existing coordination mechanisms;
Aligning ministries and department programmes and resources to leverage additional funding.
Issue 3 – Skewed knowledge – Benin
Benin provides an example on how to strengthen individual skills and institutional capacities to foster green, low emission and climate resilient development:
Engaging international partners (in this case the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management) for an initial delivery of a training programme that can later on be delivered by a national training institution;
Developing skills for understanding the “big picture” on sources of climate finance (public, private, domestic and external) and how to best align and combine them;
Identifying opportunities for collaboration among sectors and governance levels to formulate funding proposals at access climate finance;
Designing incentives to ensure that knowledge is applied after the training (i.e. small awards provided for the best five concepts so that they can be turned into full proposals).
Issue 4 – Limited dialogue – Indonesia
Indonesia embarked on the development of a National Climate Change Learning Strategy in The Government of Indonesia successfully fostered the participation and dialogue of key governmental and non-governmental stakeholders around five priorities areas and cross cutting sectors: forestry and peat land; agriculture; energy and transportation; industry and waste. The cooperation and knowledge sharing among stakeholders has resulted in a vision, strategy and action plan to build individual and institutional capacities through education and training in priority areas of adaptation and mitigation. The Government of Indonesia has led the process in the following ways:
Creating an inclusive space for discussion, and by keeping stakeholders informed throughout the Strategy development process;
Ensuring transparency and fairness throughout the decision-making process;
Identifying strategic thematic priorities to engage a range of sectors and stakeholders who have different interests;
Involving development partners early on in the process;
Initiating discussions on financing and financing sources to keep different stakeholders involved.
All issues – Regional Cooperation through the Mekong River Commission
The Mekong River Commission is an intergovernmental organization including Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, currently developing a regional climate change adaptation strategy in order to promote increased information sharing and cooperation. For example, through its Climate Change and Adaptation Initiative (CCAI), the Commission has introduced a climate sensitive flood forecasting system for its members, with support from the German Development Cooperation and GIZ.
Key question for participants:
Can you offer an example from your experience of overcoming an institutional barrier listed in the previous slide?

14. A climate change coordinating structure – Malawi
Example from Malawi
Existing structures
New structures
Source: UNITAR, 2015

15. What have we learned?
Institutional clarity is important: get it right from the outset;
Institutions for what? Coordination is the most fundamental service that institutions can provide for NAPs;
Consider your key stakeholders both by sector and level of government national to local;
Where there are challenges, there are solutions;
What have you picked up from this session?

16. Exercise part A: Institutional barriers and possible responses
You are invited to specify 4 barriers of essential importance for the concrete situation of your country
Find responses to overcome the constraints
Orientate yourself on matrix II.2.1
Note down your findings on cards

17. Exercise part B: Stakeholder mapping - I
The relevant stakeholders’ names should first be written on cards using the colours as indicated:
Primary stakeholder
Veto player
Secondary stakeholder

18. Exercise part B: stakeholder mapping - II
Place the cards on the prepared table and develop a stakeholder map
Please reflect also the strength of influence of the stakeholder by positioning the cards: the closer to the centre, the stronger the influence
Analyse the interactions between the stakeholders by using the following lines in the stakeholder map:
Strong cooperation:
Weak cooperation:
Conflicting relationship:

19. Exercise part C: Institutional set up
Allocate the stakeholders, which you identified in the stakeholder map, according to the scheme II.2.2
Just take the relevant cards from the stakeholder map and place them in the scheme
In a second step, reflect on adequate solutions for an organizational scheme for the NAP process (you might indicate arrows of cooperation)

20. Imprint
Published by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH
Climate Policy Support Project
Dag-Hammarskjöld-Weg Eschborn, Germany T F
Contact E I
Responsible Michael Brossmann, GIZ
Authors Angus Mackay, Ilaria Gallo
Picture credits Title: Indonesia stakeholder (UN: CC Learn, 2013), Mali Auditorium (UN Photo, 2013), NAP Cube (NAP Malawi, 2014), NAP process key stakeholders & Zoom-In (UNFCCC LEG, 2012), A climate change coordinating structure – Malawi (UNITAR 2015)
This presentation is part of a NAP country-level training that has been developed by GIZ on behalf of BMZ and in cooperation with the NAP Global Support Programme (NAP-GSP), in particular UNDP and UNITAR.
The training is designed to support countries in setting up a National Adaptation Plan (NAP) process. It builds on the NAP Technical Guidelines developed by the Least- Developed Countries Expert Group (LEG).
You are welcome to use the slides, as long as you do not alter its content or design (including the logos), nor this imprint. If you have any questions regarding the training, please contact Michael Brossmann at GIZ. For questions related to the Technical Guidelines, please refer to the UNFCCC’s NAP Central.
As a federally owned enterprise, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH supports the German Government in achieving its objectives in the field of international cooperation for sustainable development. GIZ also engages in human resource development, advanced training and dialogue.