Vertical Integration: Bridging National and Local Climate Adaptation in Indonesia, Brazil and India

This WRI research paper analyzes the vertical integration of climate adaptation in Indonesia, Brazil, and India. It identifies fragmented governance, capacity gaps, and financing shortages as primary barriers to coordinating national and sub-national efforts. The study recommends improving cross-sectoral accountability, enhancing official capacity, harmonizing risk data, and ensuring traceable financial flows to enable more effective, locally led climate resilience.

• Vertical integration is defined as the alignment and coordination of national and sub-national governments across planning, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation. This process aims to ensure adaptation priorities reflect local conditions while remaining aligned with national objectives, ensuring implementation models match sub-national capacities.
• Indonesia, Brazil and India share three primary barriers to the vertical integration of climate adaptation: fragmented governance characterized by weak institutional coordination; capacity gaps resulting from varying levels of understanding of climate adaptation among officials; and financing gaps caused by limited human and financial resources, particularly at the sub-national level due to accountability gaps and lack of data.
• The study recommends four strategies for emerging-market countries to improve vertical integration: improving cross-sectoral governance and accountability; enhancing the capacity of officials to plan and evaluate adaptation programs; harmonizing risk assessment methodologies and data systems to improve investment credibility; and ensuring financial mechanisms allow for traceable fund allocation from national and international sources, including multilateral development banks, to sub-national levels.
• There is current global momentum to advance vertical integration, supported by the Coalition for High Ambition Multilevel Partnerships for Climate Action and UNFCCC adaptation indicators. This provides an opportunity to establish guidelines for decentralized coordination and promote locally led adaptation following the 30th Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC.

APA

World Resources Institute (2025). Vertical Integration: Bridging National and Local Climate Adaptation in Indonesia, Brazil and India. https://www.wri.org/research/vertical-integration-bridging-national-local-climate-adaptation-indonesia-brazil-india

Chicago

World Resources Institute. Vertical Integration: Bridging National and Local Climate Adaptation in Indonesia, Brazil and India. 2025. https://www.wri.org/research/vertical-integration-bridging-national-local-climate-adaptation-indonesia-brazil-india.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Resources Institute |title=Vertical Integration: Bridging National and Local Climate Adaptation in Indonesia, Brazil and India |date=2025 |url=https://www.wri.org/research/vertical-integration-bridging-national-local-climate-adaptation-indonesia-brazil-india |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldresourcesinstitute2025vertical, author = {{World Resources Institute}}, title = {{Vertical Integration: Bridging National and Local Climate Adaptation in Indonesia, Brazil and India}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, year = {2025}, url = {https://www.wri.org/research/vertical-integration-bridging-national-local-climate-adaptation-indonesia-brazil-india}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }