Building a roadmap for livestock MRV in Nigeria
Nigeria is taking steps to strengthen how livestock data are collected and used, laying the groundwork for more accurate climate reporting and better decisions across the sector.
Agriculture accounts for around 14% of Nigeria’s greenhouse gas emissions when land use and forestry are included, with methane from enteric fermentation responsible for almost half of agricultural emissions. Yet the country’s livestock emissions estimates still rely largely on Tier 1 methods. As Dr Peter Alike of the Federal Ministry of Livestock Development explained, many figures are based mainly on livestock population numbers and default emission factors.
For a country as diverse as Nigeria, these assumptions cannot fully reflect the diversity of its livestock systems. Livestock are raised across seven agroecological zones, under different feeding and production systems, while seasonal and cross-border movements complicate population estimates. Moving towards Tier 2 is therefore critical, as it would allow Nigeria to generate emissions estimates that better reflect the diversity of its livestock systems and are based on country-specific data on animal populations, performance, feed and management.
Against this backdrop, Livestock Data for Decisions (LD4D), the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC), the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) brought together government representatives, researchers, development partners and private-sector actors in Abuja on 18–19 August 2026 to discuss how Nigeria can strengthen its livestock measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) system.