But they cannot act in isolation. Government, donors and the private sector need to move as one if resilience is to take root in Nigeria.

In late May 2025, flooding in Mokwa in Niger State killed at least 117 people and left several still missing. Earlier, heavy rains destroyed homes and claimed at least 21 lives in north-central Nigeria. 

On August 6, the federal government issued flood alerts for 19 states, warning of further extreme rainfall between August 5-9. 

These events show a pattern of high climate risk: poor drainage, urbanisation, infrastructure vulnerability and changing rainfall patterns all combine to raise the stakes for agriculture, food security and human lives.

Why this is important – the drivers

• Scale of the hazard. Floods are not occasional. The Mokwa event was one of the deadliest in recent years. Lives and livelihoods are being wiped out.
• Underlying drivers. Rapid urban growth, informal settlements without drainage, old dams or reservoir‐releases (the latter implicated in past flood alerts) and infrastructure that wasn’t built with climate resilience in mind. 
• Financial gap. According to the latest report by Climate Policy Initiative, Nigeria mobilised about $2.5 billion in climate finance in 2021/22, up from $1.9 billion in 2019/20, but the annual gap (the amount needed vs the amount mobilised) is around $27.2 billion. 
• Data & systems weakness. There are limited hydrological sensors, weak last-mile alerting, and procurement systems that favour large infrastructure over agile tech-solutions.

What startups can build (and why)

Here are four areas of opportunity where startups can move from idea to impact.

1. AgTech for small-holder resilience

Startups can deliver climate-smart advisory (micro‐weather + seasonal forecasts), flood/drought-tolerant seed systems, bundled micro-insurance linked to weather triggers, and credit for replanting after floods. 

The reason: agriculture is highly exposed; floods destroy farmland and disrupt planting cycles. A viable business model could be subscription advisory plus revenue share on inputs and insurance commissions.

2. Urban resilience & data-driven infrastructure

A startup might build flood-risk mapping using satellite & local sensors, dashboards for municipalities or utilities, plus partnering with local contractors for nature-based drainage solutions. 

Drainage failures, particularly in fast-growing urban zones, magnify losses. Monetisation may come via B2G contracts (municipalities), and SaaS for decision-makers.

3. Disaster early-warning & last-mile alerting

Existing forecast agencies (e.g., the Nigeria Meteorological Agency and Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency) generate data. The gap is last-mile: reaching communities with actionable alerts, setting up evacuation triggers, and automating cash transfers tied to events. 

Startups can provide alert platforms, community-volunteer networks, and cash-trigger logic. Revenue comes from contracts with federal/state agencies or donors financing early‐warning programmes.

4. Data & risk-finance platforms

Startups can build APIs that feed river/dam sensor data, flood-indexes for insurers, and platforms that match resilience projects with blended finance. 

This matters because insurers, lenders and investors require data and pipelines to underwrite risk and invest in adaptation. Business models: licensing data/APIs, performance-based contracts, or match-making fees.

Real barriers—for clarity

I don’t want to sugar-coat it. To succeed, startups must navigate tough obstacles:

• Demand and payment risk. Many users (farmers, low-income communities) either cannot pay or are unwilling; commercial viability is weak without subsidy or public procurement.
• Procurement friction. Governments usually prefer big infrastructure contracts; small pilots are easier but scaling is slow.
• Finance constraints. As CPI found: “affordability of finance” and “limited supply of bankable projects” are major limitations. 
• Data gaps & interoperability. Without local sensors, standardised APIs or institutionalised data-sharing, solutions remain brittle.
• Policy/regulation lag. If legal frameworks, open data mandates and procurement reforms don’t keep pace, startups are left in limbo.

Government role – what must happen

If I were advising a government, I’d urge these five actions:

1. Commit to rapid procurement windows: allocate dedicated budgets for resilience tech (not just studies) so startups can contract and scale.
2. Mandate open data/ APIs from agencies like NiMet and NIHSA; make hydrological & meteorological data accessible.
3. Establish blended-finance/guarantee facilities that de-risk private investment in resilience (so startups can raise funding).
4. Embed impact-based early-warning systems in national disaster-risk management plans; authorise automatic triggers (e.g., cash transfers, evacuation alerts) when thresholds are exceeded.
5. Support local capacity at state and municipal level: invest in drainage, sensors, maintenance funds and community-volunteer networks.

Donors & development finance – their move

Donors and multilateral funds should focus on enabling, not just funding studies:

• Provide first-loss and outcome-based grants to make resilience commercially viable for startups.
• Fund data infrastructure: sensors, river gauges, ground monitoring networks and software platforms.
• Support risk transfer mechanisms, e.g., parametric insurance tied to flood/crop loss, accessible for rural farmers.
• Act as procurement catalysts: fund multi-year contracts that governments can absorb, reducing risk for startups.

Quick wins in next 12 months

• Launch a low-cost river-gage + SMS alert pilot across 1-2 high-risk LGAs identified by federal alerts.
• Bundle climate-smart advisory + micro-credit + parametric insurance for crop planting next season.
• Co-develop with NiMet a verified API feed for flood forecasts and package it commercially to insurers.

Medium to long-term (1-5 years)

• Build integrated river-basin monitoring (NIHSA + regional partners) and link to automated insurance triggers.
• Expand urban-resilience programmes: retrofit drainage, deploy nature-based solutions, create maintenance markets.
• Develop national procurement frameworks & climate-resilient infrastructure codes so tech innovation is institutionalised.

KPIs worth tracking

Choose measurable indicators:

• Time from warning to evacuation (hours) in pilot areas.
• Number of smallholders covered by parametric protection.
• % reduction in crop loss in project pilot zones year-on-year.
• Time from pilot to procurement contract for a resilience startup (months).
• Amount of blended finance mobilised (USD) for resilience.
• Number of municipalities using startup-delivered dashboards.

Risks & ethical issues

• Beware of “tech-solutionism”: technology alone won’t solve structural issues. Community involvement matters.
• Data privacy: especially for farm, household or geospatial data. Ensure consent and benefit sharing.
• Elite capture: resilience programmes must reach marginalised groups, not just well-connected players.

I believe we have a real opportunity in Nigeria. Startups are prepared to build the tools; the urgency is undeniable. But without policy clarity, finance reform and institutional buy-in, innovation will stall in pilots. 

If the next 12 months see coordinated action among startups + government + donors, we’ll move from reactive relief to proactive resilience.

This is according to a major new report released by XDI (Cross Dependency Initiative), a global leader in physical climate risk analysis.

Without urgent investment in emissions reduction and physical adaptation, operators could face soaring insurance premiums, growing disruption to operations, and billions in damages, they say.

XDI’s 2025 Global Data Centre Physical Climate Risk and Adaptation Report offers the most comprehensive global picture yet of how extreme weather threatens the backbone of the digital economy.

The report ranks leading data centre hubs by their exposure to eight climate hazards, flooding, tropical cyclones, forest fires, coastal inundation and more, now and into the future and under different climate scenarios.

It is based on analysis of nearly 9,000 operational and planned data centres worldwide.

In a world first, the report quantifies how targeted structural adaptations, changes to the physical design and construction of data centres, can dramatically improve resilience, reduce risk, and help curb escalating insurance costs.

“Data centres are the silent engine of the global economy.  But as extreme weather events become more frequent and severe, the physical structures underpinning our digital world are increasingly vulnerable,” says Dr Karl Mallon, founder of  XDI (Cross Dependency Initiative).

“When so much depends on this critical infrastructure and with the sector growing exponentially operators, investors, and governments can’t afford to be flying blind. Our analysis helps them see the global picture, identify where resilience investments are most needed, and chart pathways to reduce risk,“ he said.

Key insights include:

• Data centre hubs in New Jersey, Hamburg, Shanghai, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Moskva, Bangkok and Hovestaden are all in the top 20 for climate risk by 2050, with 20-64% of data centres in these hubs projected to be at high risk of physical damage from climate change hazards by 2050.
• APAC is the fastest growing region for data centre growth in the world, yet it also carries some of the greatest risk, with more than 1 in 10 data centres already at high risk in 2025, becoming more than 1 in 8 by 2050.
• Insurance costs for data centres globally could triple or quadruple by 2050 without decisive mitigation and adaptation.
• Targeted investments in resilience could save billions of dollars in damages annually.

The report highlights that climate risk varies dramatically by location, even between data centres in the same country or region.

This kind of like-for-like, jurisdiction-spanning analysis is critical for guiding smarter investment decisions in new and existing data centres, helping asset owners, operators and investors allocate capital where it will have the greatest impact on protecting long-term value.

The report also reinforces that decarbonisation and adaptation must go hand in hand to safeguard the digital economy for the long term.

Adaptation is essential, but the most resilient data centre is only as secure as the infrastructure it depends on, roads, water supply, and communications links, which are themselves vulnerable to climate hazards.

Without ambitious and sustained investment in emissions reduction to limit the severity of climate change, no amount of structural hardening will fully protect these critical assets.

XDI is part of The Climate Risk Group.