Thematic working groups
Committees and task groups co-develop metrics, tools and papers on adaptation.
Overview
Four ways IPAM experts contribute
UNFCCC & COPs
Submissions on the GGA and the Global Stocktake, and side events at every COP since COP26.
Webinars & events
Internal and global webinars and event series dedicated exclusively to adaptation metrics.
Papers & conferences
Position and policy papers, and international conferences dedicated to adaptation metrics.
Thematic working groups
Four thematic committees
Launched in 2021, the thematic committees gathered experts around a sector or a discipline. Only the Tools, Techniques & Member Network is still active today.
Active · Meets about once a month
Tools, Techniques & Member Network
Convenes an interdisciplinary group of experts, merging and adding new approaches to each discipline's “tool kit” for surveilling, archiving and sharing, evaluating, co-developing and piloting techniques and tools. It is also the place for IPAM members to get to know each other, build partnerships on individual projects or incubate ideas for new IPAM task groups.
Led by IPAM chair Karl Schultz
ipamchair@aaainitiative.orgNo longer active
Agriculture Committee
Sought to build metrics to track the human, environmental and financial performance of adaptation projects, and to estimate the finance gap across governments, donors, banks, agencies and the private sector for better resource allocation. It also tracked how these projects translate into outcomes and impact, within the framework of countries' agriculture strategies, NDCs and NAPs. It notably helped create the African Agriculture Adaptation Tracking Tool.
Led by Riad Balaghi, AAA Initiative
ipamagriculture@aaainitiative.orgNo longer active
Water Committee
Sought to unite interdisciplinary water experts to study the resource (quality, quantity, surface and groundwater) and its uses (agricultural, domestic, industrial and natural). It updated hydrology, hydrogeology and hydraulics methodologies, metrics and techniques to factor in climate change for better water risk management and adaptation planning.
Led by Prof. Driss Ouazar, ASRIC
ipamwater@aaainitiative.orgNo longer active
Cities Committee
Aimed to co-create usable adaptation metrics for city planning, helping local authorities, communities and funders learn what works, measure benefits and avoided costs to justify budgets, and build legitimacy for urban adaptation investments. It brought about the scientific study “Conventional approaches to indicators and metrics undermine urban climate adaptation”, published in npj Urban Sustainability in December 2025.
Led by Marta Olazabal, Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3), until December 2022
Task groups
Task groups, from COP28 to today
Since 2023, IPAM experts gather in task groups built around a specific output — a policy paper, a statement, a review for a partner — or around IPAM's internal priorities.
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2023
Task groups wrote four policy papers presented at COP28 in Dubai: insights into the negotiations on operationalizing the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA); IPAM's sectoral expertise from its Cities, Agriculture and Water committees applied to the GGA's thematic targets and indicators; a definition of the boundaries between adaptation and loss and damage in a changing climate; and an IPAM statement on Adaptation Metrics for Global Goals.
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2024
A task group proposed three criteria that indicators should meet to be widely useful in assessing adaptation progress, using “economic water use productivity” (EWP) in agriculture as a proof of concept.
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2024 · Partner productions
One task group helped review the toolkit for the ex-post evaluation of adaptation interventions proposed by the Adaptation Fund's Technical Evaluation Reference Group (AF-TERG); another proposed to the Climate Champions a High-Level Tracking Framework for the Sharm el-Sheikh Adaptation Agenda, testing it against selected thematics.
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Ongoing · Internal priorities
Other task groups work on IPAM's internal priorities, including overall strategy, governance, website development and funding strategy.
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2025
A task group of 21 IPAM experts produced a comprehensive policy paper, “Accelerating Global Climate Resilience Through Robust Adaptation Metrics”. Over 100 experts from 25 countries convened in Morocco for an international IPAM conference, taking part in workshops structured around the paper's five main chapters and stress-testing its conclusions with a broad audience.
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Since May 2025
A dedicated task group has been developing the “Principles for Responsible Application of Artificial Intelligence to Support Climate Adaptation Metrics, Monitoring, Evaluation, Reporting, and Learning”.
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After COP30
Another task group produced a “Statement on COP30 Adaptation Outcomes: From Frameworks to Action”.
UNFCCC submissions
Tracking the UNFCCC process at every stage
Just eighteen months after launching, IPAM hosted a UNFCCC side event on adaptation metrics at COP26 in Glasgow. Since its inception, the network has closely tracked UNFCCC progress on the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) and the Global Stocktake (GST), submitting several rounds of comments on both.
See our submissions →-
COP26 · Glasgow
A UNFCCC side event on adaptation metrics, eighteen months after IPAM's launch.
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GGA & GST
Several rounds of comments on the Global Goal on Adaptation and the Global Stocktake.
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UAE–Belém Work Programme
Submissions to the work programme on indicators for the Global Goal on Adaptation.
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10 of 78 experts
IPAM members sit on the UAE–Belém panel of 78 experts selected by the UNFCCC.
Webinars and event series
Four kinds of virtual meetings
IPAM regularly hosts virtual meetings of four kinds. Whatever the audience, every webinar deals exclusively with adaptation metrics.
IPAM's own products
Webinars presenting the products developed by IPAM.
Members' work
Webinars featuring the work of individual IPAM members or member organizations.
Guest hosts
Webinars with guest hosts from outside the network.
Internal webinars
Mostly focused on capacity building, and open to IPAM members only.
COPs, papers & conferences
At every COP, in print and in person
Since COP26 · 2021
- 7 Side events
- 5 COP editions
- 4 Position papers
- 1 Policy paper
Participation in COPs
Since COP26 in Glasgow, IPAM has attended every Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC — through its individual members and member organizations — hosting or supporting seven side events across five editions. IPAM also issued a statement on COP30's adaptation outcomes.
Position papers and policy papers
IPAM has so far produced four position papers (or statements) — concise documents setting out where the organization stands and what it's calling for — alongside one policy paper: a research-backed document that lays out the evidence, the analysis and the reasoning behind its recommendations, offering a fuller synthesis feeding into COP30 in Belém.
IPAM conferences
Building on the three international conferences (2016, 2017 and 2018) launched at COP22 in Morocco, which led to IPAM's own creation, IPAM continues this tradition — organizing conferences dedicated entirely to adaptation metrics with the support of its member organizations, ideally rotating continents each time. The most recent one took place in Morocco in September–October 2025. Stay tuned for news on the next one!
Contribute to IPAM's work
Contribution to these working groups is entirely voluntary, with the only requirement being registration as an IPAM member.