Mainstreaming climate adaptation: taking stock about “what works” from empirical research worldwide

This paper takes stock of peer-reviewed empirical analyses of climate adaptation mainstreaming, in order to assess current achievements and identify the critical factors that render mainstreaming effective. The results show that although in most cases adaptation policy outputs are identified, only in a minority of cases this translates into policy outcomes. This “implementation gap” is most strongly seen in developing countries.

However, when it comes to the effectiveness of outcomes, this paper finds no difference across countries. The paper concludes that more explicit definitions and unified frameworks for adaptation mainstreaming research are required to allow for future research syntheses and well-informed policy recommendations.