“Adaptation isn’t just an option, it’s THE priority for climate resilience and sustainable development.” As per the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the Global South, particularly Africa is harshly impacted more by extreme climatic conditions. Developing nations facing disproportionate risks despite contributing far less greenhouse gases (GHGs) as compared to the Global North. Unlike developed countries with stronger resilience measures, many vulnerable nations grapple with extreme weather, food insecurity, and economic instability. To address these challenges, structured adaptation planning is critical. This necessitated the establishment of the National Adaptation Plan (NAP) process to provide a framework for countries to identify and implement tailored adaptation measures. Through NAPs, Parties strengthen their adaptation efforts by integrating adaptation planning into policies, strategies, and implementation actions to safeguard sustainable development.
The History of NAPs
The 2010 United Nations Climate Change Conference represented key steps forward in proposing a coordinated approach in Adaptation. One of the outcomes of the conference was the establishment of the NAP Process. This aimed at helping nations identify, plan, and implement medium- and long-term adaptation strategies.
NAPs in the Paris Agreement
The Paris Agreement reinforced the importance of NAPs by explicitly recognizing adaptation as a global priority. Article 7 of the Agreement urges all Parties to formulate and implement NAPs to enhance their adaptive capacity, and strengthen resilience. The Agreement also emphasizes the need for continuous adaptation planning, supported by financial and technical assistance. Through NAPs, countries can integrate adaptation into their broader sustainable development agendas, ensuring that climate risks are systematically addressed in policies and national decision-making processes.
The objectives of the NAP process are:
The Main Goals of the National Adaptation Plan Process
- To reduce vulnerability to the impacts of climate change, by building adaptive capacity and resilience.
- To facilitate the integration of climate change adaptation into new and existing policies, programs and activities, in particular development planning processes and strategies, across sectors and scales.
What are countries mandated to do within the NAP process?
- Identify climate risks and integrate adaptation into national policies.
- Strengthen institutional frameworks for climate resilience.
- Enhance funding access for adaptation initiatives.
- Encourage multi-sector collaboration, ensuring adaptation is mainstreamed across development sectors.
- Facilitate Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) to track adaptation progress.
How the NAP process works
This is an iterative four-stage process:
- Assessing vulnerabilities and setting priorities.
- Plan for Adaptation/Preparation – Developing policies and securing financing.
- Implementation of adaptation measures – Mainstreaming adaptation into national planning.
- Monitoring & Evaluate – Evaluating progress and refining strategies.
What can countries do to enhance their readiness in preparing and implementing NAPs
African countries can enhance NAP readiness by strengthening institutional frameworks, integrating adaptation into national policies, improving climate data systems, and mobilizing finance. There is need for capacity building, multi-stakeholder engagement, and leveraging on available support such as the Green Climate Fund NAP Readiness Program for NAP development, and implementation to build climate resilience.
What is the status of the NAP process after COP29?
At the COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, parties underscored the urgent need for nations, especially the developing countries, to formulate NAPs by 2025, with substantial progress in execution by 2030. To support this, the Least Developed Countries Expert Group (LEG) was tasked with updating the technical guidelines for NAP processes, incorporating the latest scientific insights, including findings from the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report. These developments highlight the critical role of NAPs in enhancing climate adaptation and the necessity for countries to prioritize their adaptation-planning efforts. Notably, developing countries were encouraged to leverage available funding entities to mobilize finance for development and implementation of NAPs.