The end of 2026 marks a critical opportunity for countries under the Paris Agreement to report on their progress in addressing the impacts of climate change and share information on their commitments to adaptation actions.
Reporting and transparency sit at the heart of global sustainable development frameworks. They build trust between countries, track progress, and give governments the evidence they need to plan and decide what to do next.
A key instrument under the Paris Agreement’s Enhanced Transparency Framework is the Biennial Transparency Report (BTR), which requires countries to report on their climate action every 2 years, with the exception of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and least developed countries (LDCs), which are not required to prepare BTRs in recognition of the capacity constraints they face.
While submitting the BTR’s adaptation chapter (A-BTR) is voluntary, a 2025 NAP Global Network review found that 81 of the 99 BTRs submitted as of April 2025 included an A-BTR, suggesting countries have been keen to communicate their progress on adaptation with this new instrument.
The upcoming deadline for the second round of BTRs this year will test whether that gap narrows. It will also show if countries are strengthening their monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) systems to provide more evidence on the effectiveness of their adaptation actions set out in their national adaptation plan (NAP) processes.
At the 2026 Peer Learning Cohort on Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning for NAP processes in Paro, Bhutan, government representatives from the Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, and Bhutan shared insights and lessons learned on their first A-BTR experience. Four shared takeaways stood out for strengthening the next round of reporting (BTR2).
1. Every country needs a national coordination structure for developing its BTR, but the shape will differ.
Each country developed its A-BTR through different national coordination structures; there is not one way of reporting. At the same time, a combination of strong domestic leadership and international support was highlighted as key factors in delivering their BTRs.
The Philippines’ Climate Change Commission convened a technical working group composed of nationally determined contribution-related agencies, the Philippines Statistics Authority, and a list of local experts serving as technical advisors.
Cambodia’s Ministry of Environment pulled together more than 10 ministries, including from agriculture, fisheries, and forestry.
Bhutan worked through an existing multi-layer structure, from the Department of Environment and Climate Change up to the National Environment Commission, with a dedicated Climate Change Coordination Committee that acts as a quality check on technical content.
Thailand works through its National Climate Change Policy Committee, chaired by the prime minister or a designated deputy prime minister, with the Department of Climate Change and Environment leading the reporting in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme.
A pragmatic lesson emerged from the Philippines: when the external funding ran into administrative challenges, the country turned to domestic resources in an effort to meet the December 2024 deadline. The adaptation chapter was drafted in a month, then took another three to get interagency sign-off.
2. The NAP document is a good starting point, but not the whole story—more information is needed from the broader NAP process.
The 2025 review flagged a pattern it called “compilation over analysis,” referring to reports that list activities and hyperlink to existing documents, rather than synthesizing them into a coherent narrative. The four country representatives on the panel described doing the opposite by anchoring their A-BTR reporting in the NAP document and making deliberate editorial choices about what to summarize.
For instance, the Philippines published its NAP in 2024, so the A-BTR effectively became a structured summary of NAP content. As the country speaker noted, “We don’t have to provide more detailed information on the BTR, since all of the information is in the NAP,” indicating a conscious synthesis choice.
Bhutan did the same, with its 2023 NAP and 2024 BTR only a year apart, so “they are not much different.” This is useful when time is short, but less so for showing implementation progress.
That is exactly where the gaps appeared.
Bhutan’s Technical Expert Review Team noted that the country “did not provide information on implementation of adaptation action,” a gap the speaker traced back to a missing centralized national MEL system: “MEL is done at the project level, and is not centralized.”
The Philippines made the same diagnosis: “We don’t have one climate information system that houses all of this information yet.”
Thailand pointed to sub-national data and inconsistent year-on-year reporting as its main constraint, noting that combining adaptation with mitigation in one report risked adaptation content being cut for space.
3. BTR2 needs to be more robust applying lessons from developing BTR1.
All four countries have noticeably more ambitious BTR2 plans, building on peer-to-peer learning, international support, and external insights. For instance, the Philippines reviewed early BTR submissions from other countries prior to drafting, while Thailand incorporated suggestions from its United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change reviewer to pursue climate finance and strengthen its gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) content.
The Philippines is partnering with a research institution to enhance analytical work and broaden stakeholder engagement through more in-depth consultations with other relevant institutions, including civil society organizations.
Thailand is building a centralized adaptation database as part of its MEL system and, between BTR1 and BTR2, has developed an adaptation action plan with sector indicators, setting up what the speaker expects to be a more substantive BTR3. It is also combining its fifth National Communication with BTR2 into a single submission, one process serving two obligations.
Cambodia is adding new components on gender equality, disability, and social inclusion (GEDSI), alongside other categories such as research and systematic observation.
Bhutan is working on its MEL system to track both domestic and international climate finance.
4. BTR2 are an opportunity to strengthen the integration of GESI.
The integration of GESI considerations in reporting, such as disaggregating data by gender and building gender indicators and analyses to assess adaptation actions, varies across the four countries, but all are moving toward improvements in their BTR2. Some countries, like Cambodia, use the broader GEDSI framing, which explicitly includes disability and will be integrated as a cross-cutting theme through its Nationally Determined Contribution 3.0.
The Philippines is developing a NAP Gender Action Plan by reviewing the government’s adaptation actions to assess GESI considerations, including gender-related indicators.
Thailand has been working on gender “for more than 10 years” and will give it explicit space in its BTR2.
Bhutan was the most emphatic: “Without GESI, we’d be missing a vital piece. We really want to have a functional GESI component.” The country representative frames it as doing real analytical work in BTR2, rather than just mentioning it.
The Harder Lesson Is Upstream
If MEL systems are not designed to capture disaggregated data and engage marginalized groups from the outset, the A-BTR risks only showing data gaps, not who is actually benefiting from adaptation. Disclosing data gaps is honest, but a long way from showing evidence of progress.
Stronger gender-responsive and socially inclusive adaptation progress reporting will draw on the disaggregated evidence MEL systems can produce, but it does not depend on quantitative metrics alone. Countries can also showcase the information qualitatively, telling the story of how different people and places are adapting to climate change, well before the data systems catch up.