Northern Nigeria is subject to land degradation, driven by climate change and unsustainable land use practices. Poverty in the region is high, with land degradation exacerbated by migration, conflict and low recognition of the rights of women, who are disproportionately impacted by poverty and land degradation and engage largely in unskilled, labour intensive agricultural work, lacking access to finance, training and decision-making. The Nigerian government prioritises uptake of farmer managed natural regeneration of vegetation and non-irrigated indigenous tree restoration to mitigate climate change and deliver livelihood and poverty reduction benefits to smallholder farming communities.
To inform restoration, this policy analysis report assesses cross-sectoral policy coherence to support irrigation-free indigenous tree restoration in Nigeria to achieve mitigation and sustainable development goals. It identifies key barriers, solutions and leverage points for changes to policy to strengthen coherence and widespread uptake of indigenous tree restoration in Nigeria, with particular focus on the Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) implications of the identified policies, and the role of partnerships and access to finance as key enablers of change. This report builds on evidence of existing good tree restoration practices detailed in the training manuals developed in this project1, and on data collected in two capacity building workshops for policy makers in Kano and Jigawa States in March 2022.