Assessment and Key Findings of the Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning System for the National Adaptation Plan Process in Bhutan

The report evaluates Bhutan's MEL system for its 2023 National Adaptation Plan, finding significant institutional fragmentation, capacity gaps, and a lack of quantifiable metrics for resilience. It recommends establishing a formal coordination mechanism between the Department of Environment and Climate Change, the Office of the Cabinet Affairs and Strategic Coordination, and the Ministry of Finance, alongside a unified national M&E system to replace outdated web-based tools and fragmented Excel reporting.

• Bhutan's current M&E practices are fragmented and sector-driven, focusing primarily on financial expenditures and physical outputs rather than long-term climate adaptation outcomes and resilience-building.
• There are significant operational failures in institutional arrangements; specifically, the Climate Change Coordination Committee (C4) is not yet operational, and the National Climate Change Committee (NCCC) lacks full representation from various ministries and agencies.
• While adaptation priorities are integrated into the 13th Five Year Plan (FYP) to some extent, the integration is difficult to quantify due to a lack of officially available detailed sectoral activities and a deficiency of quantifiable indicators.
• Local governments face a critical gap in awareness and technical capacity to identify and implement adaptation priorities, as evidenced by the 13th FYP of Mongar Dzongkhag Administration, which omitted adaptation priorities entirely.
• Previous web-based M&E systems (such as PlaMS) are no longer in use, forcing agencies to rely on Excel sheets for reporting, which hinders efficiency and effectiveness.
• There is a critical need for application-based skills in climate change financing and budgeting at the national level, and a general lack of training in adaptation assessment and economic assessment at the local level.
• Bhutan lacks a formal system for measuring national climate resilience, but the report proposes using the 2021 Climate Change Vulnerability Analysis (CCVA) index as a baseline and proxy for tracking adaptive capacity over time.
• Gender and social inclusion are not sufficiently integrated into the MEL system due to a lack of disaggregated data and dedicated focal points at the ministry and local government levels.

APA

NAP Global Network (2026). Assessment and Key Findings of the Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning System for the National Adaptation Plan Process in Bhutan. https://napglobalnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/bhutan-mel-nap-process-v2.pdf

Chicago

NAP Global Network. Assessment and Key Findings of the Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning System for the National Adaptation Plan Process in Bhutan. 2026. https://napglobalnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/bhutan-mel-nap-process-v2.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=NAP Global Network |title=Assessment and Key Findings of the Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning System for the National Adaptation Plan Process in Bhutan |date=July 2026 |url=https://napglobalnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/bhutan-mel-nap-process-v2.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{napglobalnetwork2026assessment, author = {{NAP Global Network}}, title = {{Assessment and Key Findings of the Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning System for the National Adaptation Plan Process in Bhutan}}, institution = {NAP Global Network}, year = {2026}, month = jul, url = {https://napglobalnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/bhutan-mel-nap-process-v2.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }