Ready or not: assessing national institutional capacity for climate change adaptation

This working paper introduces the National Adaptive Capacity (NAC) framework, a tool to assist governments in bringing institutional capacity development into their adaptation planning processes. The NAC framework enables its users to systematically assess institutional strengths and weaknesses that may help or hinder adaptation. National adaptation plans may then be better designed to make best use of strengths or remedy weaknesses. This working paper describes three pilot assessments conducted using the NAC framework in Bolivia, Ireland, and Nepal.