By Danjuma Amodu
This week in Abuja, Nigeria hosted the Peer Learning Forum on the National Adaptation Plan Process in Conflict-Affected Countries. On the surface it looked like another climate meeting. In reality, it was Nigeria making the case that climate action and national security are two sides of the same coin.
Nigeria is positioning its National Adaptation Plan as both a climate response and a peacebuilding tool. Officials argue that conflict-sensitive adaptation can unlock climate finance while reducing resource-driven violence in fragile regions.
BACKGROUND AND GCF SUPPORT
The current push is backed by Green Climate Fund readiness support through the project “Strengthening Nigeria’s Capacity to Advance the National Adaptation Plan Process”. The aim is to build government capacity at federal, state and local levels to plan and budget for adaptation, integrate climate risk into policy, and strengthen resilience across sectors.
The process builds on the 2011 National Adaptation Strategy and Plan of Action, which mapped 13 thematic areas from agriculture and freshwater to health, migration, security and livelihoods. The immediate focus is the Middle Belt: Benue, Plateau, Kogi, Kwara, Nasarawa, Niger and the FCT; described by officials as the nation’s food basket and the most balanced test case for linking development and adaptation.
SECURITY DIVIDENDS AND FINANCE OPPORTUNITIES
Farmer-herder clashes, banditry and cattle rustling in the North-West and North-Central have deep climate roots. Desertification and water scarcity shrink grazing land and force competition. By designing adaptation projects through the “eye of conflict sensitivity,” as Permanent Secretary Salihu Aminu Usman put it, Nigeria can reduce the triggers for violence. A climate-smart irrigation scheme in Katsina or a restored grazing reserve in Benue functions as both an environmental intervention and a peace project.
The approach also improves Nigeria’s standing with donors. With GCF support already in place, officials said conflict-sensitive design will help meet donor requirements for peace co-benefits. That could unlock more GCF funding, Adaptation Fund resources and bilateral financing for programmes that deliver resilience and stability.
REGIONAL LEADERSHIP AND NDC DELIVERY
With Burkina Faso, Mali, Chad and others at the Abuja table, Nigeria is setting the template for the Lake Chad Basin and Sahel, where climate-security threats overlap. If the approach works, Nigeria becomes the hub for technical knowledge, training and South-South cooperation, giving it both diplomatic capital and economic opportunity.
The plan also advances Nigeria’s NDC 3.0 commitment to cut emissions by 47% by 2030, conditional on support. But it is adaptation that citizens will feel first. Early warning systems for floods in Lokoja, drought-resilient seeds in Sokoto and mangrove restoration in the Niger Delta are designed to protect lives and livelihoods now. Integrating peacebuilding into these projects is meant to ensure they do not collapse when conflict flares.
EXPECTED OUTCOMES AND NEXT STEPS
The NAP project has five expected outcomes: stronger adaptation governance and coordination; improved capacity for climate analysis and prioritisation; better mainstreaming of adaptation into sectoral policy; a developed funding strategy; and enhanced monitoring, review and reporting.
The Abuja forum forms part of the next steps under a proposed GCF no-cost extension through late 2024 to early 2025. It includes training for the steering committee and working groups to move from planning to concrete action.
A REGIONAL IMPERATIVE
The Sahel is warming 1.5 times faster than the global average. When Nigeria restores degraded land, builds climate data systems and deploys nature-based solutions, the benefits cross borders. Dust storms from a desertified Yobe reach N’Djamena, and flooding in Adamawa swells rivers in Cameroon. A conflict-sensitive NAP therefore requires planning with neighbours in mind.
As Alec Crawford of the International Institute for Sustainable Development noted at the forum, “Climate change is not something that will happen in the future. It is something we are all dealing with now.” The worst-hit populations, he added, are often those already facing fragility.
FROM FORUM TO FIELD
The test now is implementation. The NAP must reach conflict-prone areas, not just state capitals. That requires local data from the Climate Risk and Vulnerability Assessment, financing that reaches local government areas, and institutional arrangements that bring environment, security and traditional leaders together.
Officials frame it as more than an environmental agenda. It is a movement for stability, development and the emancipation of vulnerable communities. If adaptation is treated as peacebuilding, Nigeria can do more than survive climate change; it can emerge stronger, more united, and help secure West Africa in the process.
Aluta continua. But this time, let the victory be green.
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Danjuma is a Development Journalist and a Public Affairs Analyst Covering Environment, Conflict, Governance and Public Policy.
