The reporting flexibility allowed for in individual Parties’ adaptation communications is likely to lead to differences in what is reported to the UNFCCC by Parties, and when. This might also make it difficult to use such information to track the progress towards the three individual aspects of the global adaptation goal agreed on in the Paris Agreement (i.e. enhancing adaptive capacity, strengthening resilience, and reducing vulnerability). The typical characteristics of adaptation, which is context-specific, long-term and changing over time, can also impede such assessments - which may explain why assessments of the same issue done by different organisations in different ways can lead to such wide variations in results.