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When coordination mechanisms are viewed across all stages of the adaptation policy process, one can see that horizontal coordination mechanisms were generally assessed by countries to be more effective than vertical coordination mechanisms. This corresponds to a general observation for many areas of administration that vertical coordination to the regional or municipal level is more challenging than horizontal coordination due to both structural and cultural factors such as the relative autonomy that regional and local government have when it comes to the implementation of policies (Christensen and Lægreid, 2008). The responses to the self-assessment also suggest that countries generally have less experience so far in implementing vertical coordination mechanisms for adaptation, as indicated by the relatively larger number of answers reporting that vertical coordination mechanisms are either not in place or are unknown. This may reflect the fact that relatively few countries have progressed to implementing adaptation policies and thus have less experience of vertical coordination (as the local nature of practical adaptation actions may suggest). The responses may, however, also reflect a difficulty in getting sufficiently detailed information on the vertical coordination as it is generally a task of each sector of administration. Many of the responses showed that vertical coordination is the responsibility of each sector that may use existing processes for coordination, rather than establish new mechanisms for adaptation alone. Switzerland is a case in point where vertical integration is reported to primarily fall under sectoral policies and only cross-sectoral topics will be addressed through a framework dedicated to adaptation.