Yusuf Ishaku Goje
Kaduna State government introduced climate budget tagging in its 2025 budget. A total of N113.33 billion (14.3% of the State’s total budget) was allocated to climate change-related expenditure. Out of which, climate change mitigation got N59.86 billion, and N53.47 billion went to adaptation.
The Civic Impact For Sustainable Development Foundation and CALPED (a collaborative partnership of community-based groups) recently conducted an analysis of the 2025 first quarter budget performance with a focus on climate change-related capital expenditure by project.
The first quarter analysis covered 12 sub-sectors (MDAs), 106 climate change-related projects, amounting to N110.3 billion. Out of this, only 3 sub-sectors got releases, amounting to N8.1 billion, with mitigation and adaptation getting N1.3 billion and N6.8 billion respectively, an under-performance of 7.32%.
The breakdown reveals that the Ministry of Health sub-sector with allocation of N404.4 million, Ministry of Education with N359.5 million, Ministry of Housing & Urban Development with N395.5 million, Ministry of Justice with N13.7 million, and Ministry of Human Services & Social Development with N89.6 million – all got zero climate change-related capital budget releases in the first quarter.
Others with zero change-related capital budget releases are the Ministry for Local Government Affairs (RUWASSA) sub-sector with N541.4 million, Kaduna State Legislature with N3.8 billion, Kaduna State Media Corporation with N45.0 million, and Ministry of Business, Innovation & Technology with N167.1 million.
On the other hand, the Ministry of Public Works & Infrastructure sub-sector got an allocation of N39.3 billion with releases of N3.7 billion (9.34% of budgeted amount), with mitigation getting releases of N818.8 million and adaptation getting N2.7 billion.
While the Ministry of Environment & Natural Resources got N5.3 billion with N1.8 billion (34.42% of budgeted amount) released, with mitigation and adaptation getting releases of N377.1 million and N1.5 billion respectively.
Lastly, the Ministry of Agriculture sub-sector also got an allocation of N59.8 billion with releases of N2.6 billion (4.29% of budgeted amount), with mitigation getting releases of N80.8 million and 2.5 billion going to adaptation.
This reveals that only the Ministry of Environment & Natural Resources out of the 12 sub-sectors analyzed had an impressive performance in terms of releases in the first quarter.
Therefore, this is a clarion call to action on the State government to prioritize cash-backed releases and value for money in climate change-related capital expenditure in the remaining quarters of 2025.
It is no longer sufficient and worthy of celebration to have policy frameworks, carry-out restructuring and reforms, and make exciting policy pronouncements. As this will only amount to isomorphic mimicry without timely, adequate and effective utilization of cash-backed releases.
Goje is an active citizen, a civil society member, and an Open Government Partnership enthusiast
