Adaptation to climate change is impacted by a range of interrelated processes operating from local to global levels. There are often significant disconnects between different people’s perceptions of respon- sibilities, capabilities and motivations, and divergent understandings of how the system works across actors, sectors and levels of governance. This results in misalignments of policies and practices, plus in- effective flows of resources and knowledge across the network of climate adaptation actors. As these disconnects are rooted in deep misunderstandings of the grounded realities of different actors, an expe- riential process of mutual discovery is required to build shared understanding and mutual respect. While it is common in the literature for people to talk about multi-level governance, most existing planning processes involve the production of separate plans at each individual level, based on the often-mistaken assumption that they will aggregate into an effective multi-level approach. This paper presents a new, multi-level integrated planning and implementation (MIPI) process, bringing together diverse actors from community, district, regional and national levels in the same workshop. The MIPI process creates a safe space that allows participants to interact directly in conducting systemic, cross-level analyses, as well as the multi-level integration of policies, plans and programs. The paper describes how the MIPI process was designed and facilitated in Ghana to address climate change, agricultural development and food se- curity. This methodology has potential for much broader applicability to complex, multi-level planning and implementation processes.