Across Nigeria, millions of households, schools, and clinics still live and work without reliable electricity. The communities most exposed to climate change are, too often, the last to receive the tools of the energy transition. Children study by kerosene lamp. Farmers watch harvests fail as weather patterns shift. Health centres cannot refrigerate vaccines. Young people with talent and ambition leave, because opportunity follows power, and power never came.
The Climate Energy and Livelihoods Initiative (CELI) was founded in 2026 to answer that gap. We are a Nigerian non-profit foundation, registered as Incorporated Trustees under the Companies and Allied Matters Act, working at the intersection of three things that cannot be separated: climate action, energy access, and livelihoods.
What we believe
We believe clean energy is not a distant policy goal. It is daily, usable infrastructure for food, income, education, and resilience. A solar panel on a school changes what children can learn. A solar-powered cold store changes what a fishing community can earn. A trained local technician changes what a whole village can sustain.
We also believe in doing a few things well and proving them, rather than promising everything and evidencing nothing. Our work is built to be measured.
What we will do
Our early programmes focus on:
- Energy access, bringing clean, affordable solar power to households, schools, and community facilities in underserved areas
- Agrovoltaics, piloting solar-integrated agriculture so smallholder families can generate power and grow food from the same land
- Skills and training, building green skills among youth and women through practical, community-based learning, including our SolarLearn training programme
- Public education and advocacy, deepening understanding of climate change, sustainable development, and the energy transition
Our work aligns primarily with Sustainable Development Goals 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy), 13 (Climate Action), and 4 (Quality Education), with women and youth participation measured as core outcomes, not side commitments.
How we will work
CELI is community-first and partnership-led. We design with communities, not just for them. We work with schools, local institutions, funders, and fellow organisations that share our objectives. And we hold ourselves to the standards of governance, transparency, and evidence that the communities we serve, and the partners who back us, deserve.
We are at the beginning. The certificate is new, the team is small, and the task is large. But the need is urgent, the tools exist, and the will is here.
If you are a school, community, partner, or funder who shares this vision, we would like to hear from you at info@celi.org.ng.