The official definition, objectives and guidelines of the NAP process are available via the UNFCCC website.
In simple terms, the NAP process is a strategic process that enables countries to identify and address their medium- and long-term priorities for adapting to climate change.
Led by national governments, the NAP process involves analyzing current and future climate change and assessing vulnerability to its impacts. This provides a basis for identifying and prioritizing adaptation options, implementing these options, and tracking progress and results.
Importantly, the NAP process puts in place the systems and capacities needed to make adaptation an integral part of a country’s development planning, decision making and budgeting while ensuring it is ongoing practice rather than a separate ad hoc exercise.
Ultimately, the NAP process aims to make people, places, ecosystems, and economies more resilient to the impacts of climate change.
The NAP process also strives to make adaptation part of standard development practice, where adaptation needs are embedded in how countries plan their futures, invest their resources and track their progress.
Within the context of UNFCCC discussions, NAP stands for “National Adaptation Plan” and the formulating and implementing of NAPs is referred to as the “NAP process.” This reflects that there is both a document (plan) and process (planning) associated with the endeavour. The term “national adaptation planning” is also often used to describe the process itself (instead of “NAP process”).
In regular conversation and practice with relevant stakeholders, it does not matter which term is used; what is important is that everybody has a shared understanding that it is a process for identifying and addressing a country’s priorities for adapting to climate change.