ActionAid: Debt Servicing Threatens Nigeria’s Climate Response, Deepens Burden on Women, Children  

Michael Olugbode in Abuja

Nigeria’s escalating debt burden is threatening the country’s capacity to finance climate adaptation and essential public services, with women, girls and children facing a disproportionate share of the consequences of the widening fiscal and environmental crisis, ActionAid Nigeria has warned.

The warning was issued in Abuja at a press conference organised by ActionAid Nigeria in partnership with the Euphrates Climate Foundation, one of the partners under the Renewed Women’s Voice and Leadership (RWVL) Project Nigeria, as the organisations called for urgent action to address the growing link between Nigeria’s debt burden and climate vulnerability.

The press conference followed the release of ActionAid International’s flagship report, Debt Fuels the Climate Crisis: How the Finance Flows, which found that the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries are spending nearly 25 times more on debt repayments than on climate action.

The report also found that 93.5 per cent of the countries assessed are either already in debt crisis or at significant risk of debt distress.

For Nigeria, ActionAid said, the figures have consequences far beyond government balance sheets, warning that debt obligations could increasingly constrain the resources available to tackle climate-related disasters and provide essential services.

The organisation said Nigeria’s debt repayments are projected to consume more than half of government revenue in 2026, raising concerns over the country’s ability to adequately finance flood prevention, resilient agriculture, healthcare, education, renewable energy and other measures required to protect vulnerable communities.

The warning comes against the backdrop of Nigeria’s continuing exposure to climate-related challenges, including flooding, changing rainfall patterns, rising temperatures, pressure on agricultural production and environmental degradation in oil-producing communities.

Flooding has repeatedly destroyed homes and farmland, displaced communities and disrupted economic activities, while climate pressures on agriculture have contributed to growing concerns over food security and household incomes.

For rural communities whose livelihoods depend heavily on farming and fishing, environmental degradation and climate-related shocks can translate directly into lost income, higher food costs and increased poverty.

ActionAid illustrated the human dimension of the crisis through the experience of Finegirl, a 59-year-old farmer, mother and grandmother from the Niger Delta.

According to the organisation, Finegirl recalls a time when rivers provided fish, farms produced good harvests and communities had access to clean water.

She now describes an environment in which oil pollution has contaminated waterways, undermined fishing and farming and damaged the natural resources on which families depend.

ActionAid said Finegirl’s experience demonstrates how environmental degradation and climate pressures can destroy livelihoods and push already vulnerable households deeper into poverty.

The organisation said the consequences are particularly severe for women and girls, who often become the “shock absorbers” when climate disasters destroy livelihoods or public spending is squeezed.

Women may be forced to travel longer distances to obtain water, reduce their food intake when supplies become scarce and shoulder additional unpaid care responsibilities when healthcare and other public services are weakened.

Girls may also face increased pressure to leave school when climate-related losses reduce household incomes.

Children and young people, ActionAid added, are exposed to the longer-term consequences through disruptions to education, healthcare and employment opportunities, potentially leaving them to inherit both the economic burden of debt and the environmental consequences of inadequate climate investment.

The situation is further complicated by Nigeria’s energy deficit.

Despite being Africa’s largest fossil fuel producer, ActionAid said nearly 40 per cent of Nigeria’s population remains without access to electricity, underscoring the scale of the country’s energy and development challenges.

The organisation questioned how Nigeria could adequately finance renewable energy, climate-resilient infrastructure, flood prevention, healthcare, education and agricultural adaptation when such a significant proportion of public revenue is projected to be committed to debt repayment.

The challenge, however, extends beyond Nigeria.

ActionAid International’s report found that countries in the Global South are paying about 225 times more in debt repayments than they receive in grant-based climate finance.

It also raised concerns over the structure of climate finance available to developing countries, noting that much of the financing comes in the form of loans, potentially adding new debt to countries already struggling to cope with climate impacts.

ActionAid Nigeria consequently called for a fundamental rethink of how climate action and development are financed.

It urged the federal government to increase domestic public financing for climate adaptation and resilience, including investment in sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, flood prevention and locally led solutions designed to protect livelihoods and vulnerable communities.

The organisation also called for urgent action to address Nigeria’s debt burden, insisting that public borrowing and repayment obligations must be managed in a sustainable and transparent manner.

It warned that debt servicing should not crowd out expenditure on healthcare, education, social protection and climate resilience.

ActionAid further demanded greater transparency and accountability in the management of climate finance, including public tracking of funds and meaningful participation by citizens and affected communities.

It called for climate budgets to be gender-responsive and disability-inclusive, arguing that major climate programmes should demonstrate how their resources would address the specific needs and leadership of women, persons with disabilities and other vulnerable groups.

The organisation also urged greater investment in women-led green enterprises and jobs by providing women and young people with access to skills, technology, finance and markets in renewable energy, agroecology, recycling, sustainable agriculture and other emerging green sectors.

Beyond domestic reforms, ActionAid Nigeria joined the wider ActionAid Federation in calling for the cancellation and restructuring of unsustainable and unjust debt, increased grant-based climate finance and reforms to the international debt system.

It also advocated transparent public debt and climate audits involving women, young people and communities directly affected by climate change.

Country Director of ActionAid Nigeria, Andrew Mamedu, said climate justice should ultimately be measured by its impact on ordinary people whose livelihoods and futures are increasingly threatened by environmental and economic pressures.

“Climate justice must ultimately be about people, the farmer struggling to grow food, the fisher whose livelihood is disappearing, the girl whose education is threatened and the young person wondering what future they will inherit,” Mamedu said.

He added: “Countries should not have to borrow their way out of a climate crisis.”

ActionAid Nigeria maintained that Nigeria’s debt and climate challenges could no longer be treated as separate policy issues, arguing that decisions on borrowing, debt repayment, public spending and climate financing would have direct consequences for the country’s ability to protect vulnerable communities and build resilience to future shocks.

The organisation said failure to address the twin pressures could deepen poverty and inequality, particularly among households already exposed to environmental degradation, inadequate public services and climate-related disasters.

It therefore called for stronger domestic investment, transparent climate financing and a more sustainable debt framework, stressing that climate action must protect not only the environment but also the livelihoods, rights and future prospects of Nigerians.