The International Food Policy Research Institute has conducted this study to explore the challenges and opportunities climate change adaptation provides to institutional, organisational and human-capacity strengthening. The report seeks to provide insight and reflection on the issues faced by organisations involved in climate change adaptation in Kenya, Bangladesh, Mali, and Ethiopia. The study is based upon e-surveys and face-to-face interviews with 87 practitioners working in government agencies, civil-society organisations, NGOs, academic institutions, and think-tanks. The paper begins by introducing the context of the research, and provides an overview of the studies' aims, which include the analysis and assessment of the perceptions, capacities and interactions of various organisations and stakeholders. Specific country contexts and policy frameworks are presented before the report moves on to the awareness and practice of organisations working on climate change, as well as their organisational and institutional issues. Among the highlights of the study's findings are that:

there seems to be no clearly designed policies within organisations to contribute to national and collective efforts, nor any explicit and measurable project monitoring and evaluation systems. It is suggested this may be due to a lack of clear, achievable targets in these countries’ NAPAs
training programmes are needed to address some of the gaps in skills, practices, and human resources. However, changes in management and organisational culture are also needed for the more structural issues identified by the study
there is limited emphasis within project design and implementation on the need for the participation of target groups, the importance of profitability and financial sustainability, market access, and gender, political and social issues. ·
while gender is often considered in the design stage, it receives much less attention during the implementation and monitoring stages. On this latter point, it is noted that gender-disaggregated data collection is rarely conducted by these organisations
there is a need for organisational capacity building efforts and a greater commitment from government authorities and organisational managers, both to ensure that monitoring practices are improved, and to address the perception of a lack of organisational accountability to the affected rural communities.