Accelerating climate action through increased knowledge: Transitional learning innovations for subnational adaptation planning in Ghana

The dominant challenge in current climate adaptation practice is the tendency to approach adaptation as an event or an outcome, which could be achieved with engineered or regimented processes. Such assumptions ignore the inherent learning and cognitive imperatives in adaptation and how adaptation to climate change becomes both a learning problem and a learned process. This paper foregrounds the critical importance of intentional learning in adaptation planning processes. Focusing on Ghana’s National Adaptation Planning (NAP) program, the paper explores how Peer Learning Exchanges (PLE) as a learning framework has become a key component of Ghana’s NAP process. The study employed both quantitative and qualitative methodologies to evaluate the learning experiences of learners in multiple PLE events to establish how new adaptation knowledge is acquired and applied in different contexts. Findings indicate positive outcomes suggestive of a clear nexus between knowledge, intentional learning and enhanced climate adaptation actions.