Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) have proven to be a good exercise that paved the way to national level mitigation and a move from project to sectoral based mitigation. Their evolution has developed one of the most valuable tools that developing countries have to pursue their national commitments towards limiting global warming to 2C in line with the Paris Agreement.

Since adoption of the Agreement, there is a question of how NAMAs fit in the future climate landscape. Certainly there is a prospect for them to continue beyond 2020 and at minimum provide valuable lessons and implementation tools for countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

NDCs face similar development and implementation challenges as NAMAs; learning is therefore crucial. This policy brief charts a path for how NAMAs can inform the NDCs.

The briefing outlines the current trends in NAMA development and implementation, deliberates on the future role of NAMAs and a prospect for them to continue beyond 2020 in the context of INDCs. Furthermore, the briefing defines how NDCs benefit from countries’ experiences with NAMA development and implementation.

Key findings and recommendations

For NDCs to drive transformational change, supporting and implementing actors should:

• Build on the limitation of NAMAs by providing a system for sustainable development assessment, including publicly available sustainable development indicators, and requirements for sustainable development monitoring, and stakeholder engagement;
• Provide clear rules for defining the minimum group of stakeholders to be invited, means for inviting stakeholders’ participation, information to be made available in the appropriate language, as well as how the consultations shall be conducted;
• Address financial risks and returns, public resources and leveraging of investments through establishment of rigorous financial mechanism.