This working paper provides a summary of initial findings on the factors influencing how meso-level institutions in Nepal are responding to climate change and extreme climate events. Nepal is still experiencing difficult processes of transition from war to peace. Underlying these difficulties and central to a view of Nepal as a state with limited capabilities is the ongoing challenge to its legitimacy, the failure of the state to perform in terms of delivery of basic public goods and reduce poverty, all underpinned by the persistence of an old political elite based on old social hierarchies and practices leading to enduring patterns of social exclusion.