Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana on ISSB standards: dates, scope and assurance compared

Mandatory reporting under the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) standards begins in Kenya and Ghana with annual periods starting on 1 January 2027, and in Nigeria a year later. All three set their paths through roadmaps issued by professional or regulatory accounting bodies rather than securities regulators, and all three extend the requirement, in stages, beyond listed companies to large private firms and eventually smaller ones, according to the IFRS Foundation's jurisdictional profiles. The Foundation lists 23 profiles on its use-by-jurisdiction page, last updated on 24 September 2026, seven of them for African jurisdictions: Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

This explainer compares three of them. The Kenyan, Nigerian and Ghanaian profiles are dated 12 June 2025, so they describe the roadmaps as they stood then; any later changes are not reflected.

Who sets the rules and when they bite

In Kenya, the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya issued a Roadmap for Adoption of IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards in November 2024 adopting IFRS S1, the general requirements, and IFRS S2, the climate standard. All entities may apply the standards from periods starting on or after 1 January 2024. Public interest entities, including all listed companies, must apply them from 1 January 2027, large non-public interest entities from 1 January 2028 and small and medium-sized entities from 1 January 2029, according to the Kenya profile.

In Nigeria, the Financial Reporting Council, the national standard-setter and financial reporting regulator, issued its Roadmap Report in March 2024, adopting IFRS S1, IFRS S2 and all future ISSB standards. Voluntary application has been allowed since 2024. Public interest entities, including all listed companies, must apply the standards from periods starting on or after 1 January 2028, and small and medium-sized entities from 1 January 2030, the Nigeria profile says.

In Ghana, the Institute of Chartered Accountants, Ghana, issued a roadmap adopting IFRS S1, IFRS S2 and all future ISSB standards. After a voluntary phase from 2024, significant public interest entities must apply the standards from periods starting on or after 1 January 2027. That category covers listed entities, banks, insurers, corporate trustees and registered pension schemes, public limited companies and holding companies of public or regulated entities, according to the Ghana profile.

Ghana is the only one of the three to name sectors. From the same 2027 date, the standards also apply to upstream oil and gas exploration, development and production companies with petroleum agreements, mining exploration and production companies, oil and gas refineries, automobile producers, cement manufacturers and power generators other than renewable producers. All other companies incorporated under the Companies Act, 2019 follow from 1 January 2028, except government organisations and "non-mandatory companies": those not trading or issuing securities publicly or holding assets as fiduciaries, with revenue of no more than GHS 50 million in each of the prior two years or total assets of no more than GHS 40 million, the profile says.

Assurance: Kenya and Nigeria phase in, Ghana undecided

Kenya's roadmap moves from voluntary limited assurance from 1 January 2025 to mandatory limited assurance from 1 January 2028, then mandatory reasonable assurance from 1 January 2029 except for Scope 3 greenhouse gas disclosures, which stay at limited assurance, and reasonable assurance for all disclosures from 1 January 2030, according to the Kenya profile.

Nigeria counts in reporting years rather than calendar dates. Assurance is voluntary in the first years; limited assurance applies in years three and four, excluding Scope 3 emissions, scenario analysis and transition plans; in year five those three items get limited assurance and everything else reasonable assurance; and from year six all disclosures need reasonable assurance, the Nigeria profile shows.

Ghana has not decided. Its profile says some level of assurance is expected from the second year of application. It adds a governance requirement of its own: a statement of directors' responsibilities for the sustainability disclosures in the directors' report, and a signature on the sustainability section by two directors and the chief sustainability officer or equivalent, according to the Ghana profile.

What the three have in common

• Foreign publicly accountable entities report under the same framework as domestic ones in all three, per the Kenyan, Nigerian and Ghanaian profiles.
• None extends the transition reliefs in IFRS S1 and IFRS S2, and all require disclosures at the same time as the financial statements, subject to the standard's first-year relief.
• All three reach beyond listed companies, with dates running to 2029 in Kenya and 2030 in Nigeria for smaller entities.

For investors and lenders, the effect is that from 2027 the largest companies in Kenya and Ghana, and from 2028 those in Nigeria, will report on the ISSB baseline rather than on local or voluntary frameworks. For subsidiaries of foreign groups, the inclusion of foreign publicly accountable entities and of large private companies means the requirement can apply even where the parent reports under another regime. The profiles carry the IFRS Foundation's caveat that they are general guidance; the national roadmaps remain the operative documents.