Good governance of ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) requires an adaptive, multi-sectoral and multi-level approach to allow for flexible, reflective decision-making across different levels, scales and sectors. Governance models should be tailored to local contexts while ensuring inclusion of local and traditional knowledge. There are challenges to EbA governance like fragmented policies and lack of resources, which can be addressed through collaborative stakeholder engagement and private sector involvement. Lessons learned through monitoring and evaluation should inform iterative improvements to governance.

1. • Learn about the different types of EbA governance
• Understand the principles of good governance and equity in EbA implementation
• Understand the challenges for EbA governance
• Learn how to advance a rights-based, gender-responsive and intersectional approach to EbA
• Governance: A process by which societies or organisations make their decisions, determine
whom they involve in the process and how these decisions are made (Amend, 2019).
• Adaptive governance: The flexible and learning-based collaborations and decision-making
processes between a range of actors, networks, organisations, and institutions that help
management structure face the complexities and uncertainties associated with rapid
environmental change (Amend, 2019; Schultz et al., 2015).
• Multi-sectoral governance: A governance mechanism where several government agencies and
non-governmental actors from different sectors are involved in solving multidimensional and
multi-sectoral challenges (Kanchanachitra et al., 2018).
• Multi-level governance: A governance structure where power is spread vertically between many
levels of government and horizontally across multiple actors (Amend, 2019).
• Vertical integration: Cooperation and coherence between subnational level actors and national
and international actors, to unite top-down and bottom-up efforts (Amend, 2019).
• Horizontal integration: EbA mainstreaming across boundaries between government
departments, or across different sectors to promote collaboration, shared responsibility and
decision-making (Amend, 2019).
• Equity: The principle of fairness in burden sharing and a basis for understanding how the
impacts and responses to climate change, including costs and benefits, are distributed in and by
society in more or less equal ways (IPCC, 2018).
1. Good governance is enabled by an adaptive, multi-sectoral, and multi-level approach. Flexible,
reflective, and iterative cycles of implementation of learning, coupled with decentralised
decision-making structures and a social-ecological systems thinking enhance governance quality
and ensure EbA is effective and mainstreamed across levels, scales, and sectors.

2. 2. The different governance models for EbA should be tailored to local contexts, while ensuring
EbA actions are flexible, rights-based, gender-responsive, and socially inclusive. Adaptation is
inherently local and EbA that is inclusive of local and traditional knowledges yields greater long-
term outcomes. Similarly, gender-based analyses help actors recognise the intersectionality of
societal issues and support the benefit sharing of equitable adaptation outcomes.
3. There are many challenges associated with EbA governance. These include fragmented national
policies, weak institutional capacity, lack of resources, limited common understanding of the
concept of good EbA governance and the worsening climate impacts. Dealing with these
challenges requires enhancing EbA governance through high quality and transparent multi-actor
processes and private sector engagement.
4. Lessons learned through monitoring, evaluation and learning should be incorporated as part of
adaptive governance models. This iterative cycle of planning, implementation and learning
enhances adaptation outcomes and offers valuable insights for future EbA actions.
• Governance for Ecosystem-based Adaptation: Understanding the diversity of actors & quality of
arrangements (by Thora Amend, for GIZ, 2019). This report provides a comprehensive overview
of the governance arrangements for EbA. It introduces practitioners to the different concepts
and types of governance, as well as how to engage with stakeholders and rights-holders in the
planning and implementation of EbA measures.
• Building Resilience With Nature: Maximizing Ecosystem-based Adaptation through National
Adaptation Plan Processes (by Anika Terton and Julie Greenwalt, for the NAP Global Network,
2021). This guidance note provides insights and practical steps for adaptation policymakers and
practitioners on maximising EbA through the National Adaptation Plan processes. It presents a
set of guiding principles and recommended actions to integrate and enhance EbA in adaptation
planning – including governance principles underpinning a participatory, inclusive, and iterative
approach to EbA implementation.
• IUCN Global Standard for Nature-based Solutions™ (by IUCN, 2020). Spearheaded by IUCN,
the NbS Global Standard is one of the most authoritative guidance on how to design, plan, and
implement NbS projects. It lists 8 criteria underpinning good NbS projects, including several on
the governance of NbS projects.
• Governance for Ecosystem-based Adaptation (by Alejandro Iza, for IUCN, 2021). This book
reflects upon and assesses enabling and indispensable conditions for EbA governance and
scaling, particularly in the Mesoamerican region, with recommendations for implementation in
this region and others with similar characteristics.
• Designing collaborative governance for nature-based solutions (by Malekpour Shirin et al.,
2021). This paper provides guidance on how to use collaborative governance to enable and
mainstream NbS. It provides several case studies to answer the “why”, the “what”, the “who”,
and the “how” to approach NbS implementation with meaningful stakeholder engagement and
shared governance.
• Multi-level water governance in Peru (by OECD, 2021). The publication offers an example for
establishing a coherent governance structure for water in Peru, where despite the existence of a
consolidated legal framework and the progress made in terms of integrated water resources
management, co-ordination across levels of government needs to be strengthened towards an
effective multi-sectoral approach to water, building on the OECD Principles of Water
Governance.

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https://pubs.iied.org/17620iied