Vertical integration: Bridging national and local climate adaptation in Indonesia, Brazil and India

This working paper examines how the vertical integration of climate change adaptation can be strengthened, using Indonesia, Brazil and India as comparative case studies. As large, diverse and democratic countries that emphasize multilevel governance, they offer valuable insights into the challenges and opportunities of strengthening coordination across levels of government. The study provides empirical evidence on common barriers and opportunities, and offers practical recommendations for policymakers, planners and development partners.

Four key recommendations have been identified for these emerging-market countries to advance the vertical integration of climate adaptation:

• Improve governance across sectors and institutions, including by increasing coordination; strengthening accountability across sectors and levels of government; and ensuring that roles, responsibilities and decisionmaking processes are clearly assigned and can be effectively monitored for vertical integration.
• Enhance the capacity of government officials at different levels to plan, implement, monitor and evaluate the climate adaptation programme—thereby strengthening understanding of climate adaptation issues—and improve accountability across all project phases, enabling institutions to deliver on commitments and be held responsible for results.
• Strengthen data and information and harmonise risk assessment methodologies and systems to reinforce accountability through robust monitoring and evaluation of climate adaptation progress at different levels, allowing transparent tracking of adaptation progress and improving credibility to attract investment.
• Ensure that financial mechanisms allow funds (both national and international sources such as funding from multilateral development banks) to be allocated and used in a traceable and accountable manner across national and sub-national levels.