The Mitigation Action Plans and Scenarios (MAPS) process grew out of the experience of developing the South African Long Term Mitigation Scenarios (LTMS) during 2006-2008. The approach focuses on understanding how change happens in systems while recognizing the soft science of policy shifts and strategy development. Developing high quality technical analysis with local teams is essential, but building relationships between key stakeholders to ensure the credibility of, and buy-in to such analysis is as important (if not more so) for influencing political and policy-making processes such as LEDS.

Experience from transferring the South African LTMS experience to numerous Latin American countries (including Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru) through the MAPS process highlights the importance of a strong government mandate and emphasises a participative, stakeholder-driven approach focussing on collaborative research, modelling and scenario building.