A policy checklist for Nigeria, drawn directly from the UNICEF climate risk report
By Precious Ebere-Chinonso Obi
Most climate reports end with a vague call for “urgent action’’ but this one doesn’t. Tucked into the back of the UNICEF Children’s Climate Risk Report 2026 is a full chapter of sector-by-sector recommendations, assigned to specific ministries, with specific actions attached.
Read against Nigeria’s own scores in the same report, a maximum drought reading, near-maximum extreme heat and air pollution, and a maximum child mortality score, that recommendations chapter stops being generic guidance and starts reading like a to-do list with Nigeria’s name on it.
Here’s what it actually asks of the institutions that would need to act on it.
Agriculture and water (Ministries of Agriculture and Water Resources)
With drought scored at the absolute ceiling, the report’s recommendations here are concrete: financial incentives for smallholder farmers to adopt climate-resilient practices, efficient water management, agroforestry, drought-tolerant crops paired with early-warning and climate-information services they can actually act on before a season fails, not after.
Disaster management (NEMA and state emergency agencies)
The report calls for child-focused early warning systems that reach communities, schools and clinics before a hazard becomes a disaster, plus pre-arranged emergency protocols that deploy health, nutrition, water and protection services the moment a crisis hits rather than improvising a response after the fact.
Education (Federal and State Ministries of Education)
Given Nigeria’s education resilience score of 4.33 against hazard scores sitting near 10, the report’s education recommendations carry particular weight: build school infrastructure to climate-resilient and green standards so schools can double as safe havens rather than casualties; embed contingency plans for remote or alternative learning when a school physically can’t open; and fund school health programmes that address heat stress and the psychological toll of climate disruption on students.
Energy (Ministry of Power, in coordination with Health)
This is the recommendation most directly tied to Nigeria’s near-maximum air pollution score. The report calls for accelerating household access to clean cooking and heating explicitly framedas a child mortality intervention, since indoor air pollution from open fires and dirty fuel is a leading cause of pneumonia deaths in young children. It also recommends back-up and renewable power for health facilities, schools and water systems, so a power outage doesn’t mean a clinic or classroom goes dark during a heat emergency.
Health (Federal Ministry of Health)
With child mortality at the maximum score the report measures, the health-sector recommendations call for climate-resilient primary care facilities with reliable water, energy and waste management; a health workforce trained specifically to manage climate-linked risks like heat stress and malnutrition; and integrated mental health support for children coping with disaster-related anxiety and trauma, a need the report flags as consistently underfunded.
Social welfare and child protection (Ministry of Women Affairs and state social welfare departments)
The report recommends social protection systems built to scale up automatically, cash transfers and food assistance that expand in anticipation of a drought or flood, not months after one hits alongside trained caseworkers ready to respond to the child labour, family separation and early marriage risks that climate shocks reliably trigger in stressed households.
Planning and finance (Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning)
Underneath all of the above sits a resourcing question, and the report doesn’t dodge it: it cites research finding that every dollar spent on adapting essential services for children returns more than ten dollars in avoided costs over the following decade. Its recommendation is to fold costed, child-specific climate interventions directly into national budgets and development plans, rather than treating child-focused climate adaptation as a separate, optional line item.
Why the sequencing matters
None of these recommendations are exotic. Most are extensions of programmes Nigeria already runs in some form, agricultural extension services, primary health care, school infrastructure projects, and cash transfer schemes. What the report adds isn’t a new playbook; it’s a ranked argument for where the next investment should go first, based on where the data shows the gap between exposure and capacity is widest.
For Nigeria, that gap is clearest in three places: household energy and air quality, drought-resilient agriculture and water systems, and a health system that’s currently absorbing the consequences of both. A government doesn’t need to do everything in this chapter at once. It needs to start where its own country’s numbers say the ceiling has already been reached.
- Precious Ebere-Chinonso Obi, CEO of Do Take Action, is an independent consultant on edtech, climate change, public policy, and women’s procurement empowerment
