Despite growing consensus that climate-resilient development should be at the top of the agenda for least developed countries, a persistent implementation gap means there is little practical learning derived for governments on how to operationalise. Describing an action-research project to assess the readiness of Ethiopia’s planning system for locally led climate-resilient development, this paper identifies areas for action, provides valuable lessons on the constraints to institutionalising these processes in Ethiopia, and illustrates some of the challenges and design trade-offs that development practitioners and local governments in least developed countries will have to make when implementing the principles for locally led adaptation.