UN Climate Change News, 20 October 2026 – Countries are moving from adaptation planning towards implementation, while strengthening systems to track results, learn from experience and respond to changing climate risks. These trends were highlighted at the 2026 Adaptation Forum, convened by the UNFCCC Adaptation Committee on 9–10 September in Baku, Azerbaijan.

The Forum brought together Parties, international organizations, climate funds, development banks, researchers, practitioners and civil society to explore practical solutions for scaling adaptation action and accelerating progress towards achieving the global goal on adaptation.

The discussions reflected continued progress in adaptation planning. An overview drawing on the Adaptation Committee’s portal on the state of adaptation action showed that, of the 198 Parties covered, 88 had submitted national adaptation plans, 128 reported other national adaptation plans or strategies, and 93 reported plans or strategies supporting action at the local level or cooperation across borders.

With planning increasingly in place, Forum participants examined the practical challenge of implementation: how countries can act on identified priorities, strengthen the institutions and capacities needed for delivery, and connect support with action on the ground.

Azerbaijan shared its efforts to strengthen the climate resilience of health-care facilities, including regulatory and engineering requirements addressing risks such as heat, floods and drought, alongside climate-health assessments and institutional coordination. The World Health Organization highlighted heat-health action plans as one way to connect early warning systems with measures to protect vulnerable populations. Kenya shared experience from its financing programme for locally led climate action, where participatory climate-risk assessments at ward level inform county planning and financing for locally identified resilience investments.

The United Nations University emphasized that scaling adaptation does not necessarily mean replicating the same intervention across different locations and highlighted the importance of strengthening capabilities to adapt approaches to national and local contexts.

Participants also discussed the need for more integrated and programmatic approaches, linking adaptation across institutions, sectors and levels of decision-making.

Connecting support with implementation

Access to finance and sustained technical and institutional capacity were highlighted as important for moving adaptation priorities into implementation.

Senegal highlighted three main gaps between nationally identified adaptation needs and available support: adequate and predictable finance; sustained technical and institutional capacity for planning and implementation; and support reaching vulnerable communities at the local level. Senegal also highlighted efforts to align support from different partners with national priorities, map available support and strengthen complementarity among institutions and sources of finance.

Climate funds and development banks highlighted how partnerships and complementary sources of finance can support country-led implementation. The Asian Development Bank, for example, presented its 10-year Glaciers to Farms programme, a regional, multi-sector initiative across nine countries that links glacier monitoring, water resources management and agriculture, with financing from Asian Development Bank, the Green Climate Fund and other sources.

Across the discussions, a consistent message was the need to align finance, capacity-building, technology and other support with country priorities, while reducing fragmentation and strengthening coherence among national institutions, climate funds, development banks and other partners.

Strengthening monitoring, evaluation and learning

As adaptation action expands, attention is also shifting from tracking what has been done to understanding what it is achieving.

According to the Adaptation Committee's portal on the state of adaptation action, 31% of Parties report having a monitoring, evaluation and learning system in place, while a further 32% are establishing one. Almost 30% report information on adaptation outcomes and effectiveness.

Participants emphasized the importance of evidence and experience in understanding what works in different contexts and using these lessons to inform adjustments to adaptation action. Risks, development conditions and available knowledge change over time, requiring actions to be adjusted as new information and implementation experience emerge.

Strengthening monitoring, evaluation and learning can also help countries identify implementation gaps, improve the effectiveness of adaptation measures and inform decisions on future priorities and investments.

Responding to changing risks

The Forum also examined tools and methods for anticipating emerging and interacting risks.

The IGAD Climate Prediction and Applications Centre (ICPAC) highlighted dynamic risk assessment and multi-hazard early warning systems covering risks such as drought, floods, heat, pests and agricultural impacts.

Participants discussed foresight, scenario planning, digital tools and artificial intelligence as approaches that can help anticipate changing risks and inform longer-term adaptation pathways and anticipatory action.

Georgia highlighted the potential of emerging technologies to support more forward-looking and targeted planning, while emphasizing the importance of human and institutional decision-making. Pakistan shared examples of combining climate-hazard and socioeconomic data to better identify vulnerable people and households.

Across the discussions, participants emphasized that technology and innovation are most useful when they address specific adaptation needs and complement institutions, local knowledge systems and human judgement.

Taken together, the 2026 Adaptation Forum pointed to several areas that can help strengthen adaptation implementation including moving beyond individual interventions towards more integrated and programmatic approaches, supported by coherent institutions, finance, capacity and other support aligned with national and local priorities, stronger monitoring, evaluation and learning, and the ability to anticipate evolving risks. Foresight, scenario planning and anticipatory approaches were also highlighted as ways to inform adaptation decisions under changing and uncertain conditions. The exchanges provided practical insights for the Adaptation Committee's ongoing work on promoting coherence across institutions and support arrangements, advancing understanding of adaptation progress and effectiveness and supporting Parties in advancing adaptation implementation towards achieving the global goal on adaptation.

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The Adaptation Committee was established under the Cancun Adaptation Framework in 2010 to provide comprehensive expert advice on adaptation action and support. It promotes the implementation of enhanced action on adaptation in a coherent manner under the Convention and the Paris Agreement by providing technical support and guidance, sharing knowledge and good practices, and promoting coherence and collaboration across the adaptation landscape. As part of its outreach efforts, the Adaptation Committee regularly convenes Adaptation Forums to exchange experiences, practical approaches and lessons on adaptation.