From Ranking to Impact: Kaduna’s Path to 3rd Position in Nigeria’s Subnational Climate Governance Scorecard

Abubakar Buba

Kaduna State’s emergence as third overall in the 2025 Subnational Climate Governance Performance Rating and Ranking represents an important milestone in our climate journey. Led by the Society for Planet and Prosperity (SPP), in partnership with the Department of Climate Change of the Federal Ministry of Environment the ranking exercise recognises a simple but powerful truth: while climate change is global, its impacts — and therefore many of the solutions — are fundamentally subnational.

For Kaduna, the ranking has been more than a recognition exercise. It has functioned as a mirror, a motivator and a management tool, helping us assess where we stood, where gaps existed, and how deliberately we needed to act. In 2024, Kaduna placed 16th nationwide. In 2025, we moved thirteen places upward to third position. This was neither accidental nor symbolic. It was the result of conscious, systematic effort to improve climate governance across all five dimensions assessed by the ranking.

From the outset, we made a strategic decision to use the ranking framework as a roadmap for reform with our efforts supported by UKFCDO PACE.  We focused intentionally on strengthening climate institutional arrangements; improving the status of climate policies, action plans and legal frameworks; increasing budgetary allocations; accelerating project implementation and monitoring; and improving public communication and visibility around climate action.

The results of that effort are clearly reflected in our performance. Kaduna recorded 120 points — the highest scores in Climate Institutional Arrangements, signalling the strength of our coordination structures and governance systems. We scored 50 points for budgetary allocation, placing sixth nationwide, and 50 points for online visibility, tying with the top-performing states in this category.

A defining moment in this journey was the unveiling of Kaduna’s 10-year Climate Change Policy in August 2024 — the first of its kind in Northern Nigeria. The policy commits the state to low-carbon, climate-resilient, gender- and youth-responsive development pathways. As His Excellency, Governor Uba Sani, noted at the launch, the policy is designed “to reduce emissions, enhance climate resilience, and integrate climate considerations into state planning.”

However, we recognised early that policy alone does not change lives. Implementation does. This understanding — reinforced by the assessment criteria of the ranking — led to the creation of the Kaduna Climate Change Accountability Mechanism, a multi-stakeholder framework anchored in our Open Government Partnership commitments. Through this mechanism, Technical Working Groups have been established across all 23 Local Government Areas, strengthening coordination, citizen participation and data-driven monitoring at both state and local levels.

On the ground, the impact of this governance shift is already evident.

As one of Nigeria’s leading agricultural producers, Kaduna has prioritised climate-smart agriculture and agribusiness as a pathway to resilience and job creation. Through collaboration with the Federal Government and the African Development Bank under the Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones (SAPZ) programme, the state is modernising agricultural value chains to boost productivity, increase farmer incomes and generate youth employment. By linking climate resilience with agro-industrial development, Kaduna is reducing rural poverty while lowering vulnerability to climate shocks.

At the community level, we have paired governance reform with direct financial and skills support. In March 2025, Kaduna disbursed USD 25,000 in community revolving funds to ten communities for climate-smart rain-fed agriculture, complemented by green-skills training for women and youth. These interventions are enabling year-round farming, restoring degraded ecosystems and strengthening household incomes in climate-vulnerable areas.

Recognising the growing risks of rainfall variability, we also launched the Dry Season Agricultural Empowerment Programme in February 2025, distributing 10,000 solar-powered irrigation pumps to smallholder farmers, with priority given to women and other vulnerable groups. This intervention is expanding dry-season production, reducing dependence on diesel pumping, and directly improving food security and livelihoods.

Flooding remains a major climate risk in Kaduna, particularly along the River Kaduna corridor. In response, and guided by vulnerability assessments highlighted in our governance reviews, the state commenced a major drainage desilting and widening programme, covering 200,000 metres of drainage infrastructure, alongside dredging key sections of the river system. These actions are already reducing flood risks, protecting homes and safeguarding economic activity in vulnerable urban and peri-urban communities.

We have also embedded climate action within local development financing drawing from the template developed by the ranking project team. This represents a deliberate shift from top-down budgeting to community-driven development, allowing local people to identify projects that support climate adaptation, mitigation and resilient infrastructure. Looking ahead to the 2026 fiscal year, Kaduna has proposed Project 255 — a ward-level funding model allocating ₦100 million to each of the state’s 255 wards.

Environmental restoration remains a core priority. Under the Greening Kaduna Initiative, the state has committed to planting 10 million trees over four years, with more than two million already planted since 2024. These efforts — spanning urban forest restoration, green corridors, community gardens and school-based tree planting — are reducing heat stress, improving air quality and restoring degraded landscapes across the state.

Taken together, these actions demonstrate how improved climate governance translates into real economic, social and environmental outcomes: higher farm productivity, new green jobs, reduced flood risk, stronger community resilience, improved ecosystems and more inclusive development processes.

We acknowledge that challenges remain. Funding constraints and technical capacity gaps persist, and climate impacts continue to evolve. Yet we remain confident that Kaduna’s governance model is credible, investable and scalable. The progress reflected in the 2025 ranking has strengthened investor confidence and opened new opportunities for national and international partnerships.

We welcome the Subnational Climate Governance Performance Rating and Ranking not merely as a scoreboard, but as a tool for learning, accountability and continuous improvement. The governance framework provided through the ranking has helped guide our reforms while allowing us to tailor solutions to Kaduna’s specific context.

We will continue to refine our systems, deepen implementation and expand impact — guided by evidence, informed by our people and motivated by the urgency of climate change.

Kaduna’s journey to third place is not the end. It is proof that with political will, institutional reform and citizen engagement, rapid and meaningful progress is possible.

Abubakar Buba, Hon. Commissioner for Environment and Natural Resources, Kaduna State