Sustainable economic development through community level empowerment and planning

Faced with the considerable needs of 7 million people (50 % of the total population), ACTED opened the Niger missions mid-2010 to bring an emergency response through improving nutritional coverage and cash flow aiming at recapitalizing vulnerable households.

Strong with similar crisis experience in Chad, Sudan, Central Africa, Uganda and Kenya, ACTED has led interventions in the Tillaberi region on the Malian border aimed at developing an emergency response to populations affected by the drought and the resulting food crisis.

Ensuring minimal nutritional coverage and fighting reliance

The 2009 agro-pastoral campaign in Niger was marked by a rain shortfall, leading to insufficient agricultural and forage production for food needs. In December 2009, a quick government investigation with households indicated that 7.8 million people (58.2 % of the population) were threatened with food insecurity. 2.7 million of them (20 % of the population) were considered “severely vulnerable” and 5.1 million “moderately vulnerable”. Global acute malnutrition (GAM) has hit 12.3. Faced with such a risk, it was crucial to develop emergency actions to strengthen food security for vulnerable households.

The Western part of the country was particularly hit but security risks and the low rate of sedentary people among the target population have considerably limited interventions. ACTED therefore took action in the area, covering 10,500 people’s food needs for 2 months. With support from the French Foreign Ministry’s Centre de Crise, ACTED injected 22,344,000 XOF (34,064 EUR) in the form of coupons for food and organized 4 fairs. This approach helped to consider the availability of food commodities on local markets and to act on their accessibility.

Supporting the recapitalization effort in order to accelerate early recovery of affected populations

While many humanitarian actors have intervened on the emergency nutritional crisis, quickly recapitalizing target populations was just as important. The pastoral sector hugely suffered the rainfall crisis in 2009, namely because of the impact of environmental conditions on livestock (in ACTED’s region of intervention, pastoral losses account for 64 % of herds), reduced forage production and low livestock weight, causing a drop in animal prices. Pastoral populations are even harder to help because of their nomadic nature.

The agro-pastoral crisis has had a heavy socio-economic impact, deteriorating the most vulnerable families’ goods, agro-pastoral decapitalization and consequent diminishing payments. ACTED is acting with the support of the Nigerien government Food crisis unit in recapitalizing 2,250 vulnerable households by injecting 168,750,000 XOF (275,260 EUR). Launched in November 2010, the intervention quickly supported 20 households by the end of 2010.

Developing multi-sector approaches to reinforce target populations’ capacity for resilience

ACTED’s strategy in Niger is based on two pillars. ACTED continues to cover vital needs for populations affected by the food and nutritional crisis and floods that hit the Tillaberi region. This aspect will be based on organizing emergency food and nutrition actions and recovery on an agro-pastoral and pastoral territory in the North of the Tillaberi region, as well as through support to domestic economy in responding to the emergency (cash injection).

At the same time, ACTED is launching rehabilitation interventions through the development of an integrated, sustainable and multi-sector approach, in order to act on the urgent consequences of the food crisis such as malnutrition, but also on its causes (food security, economic development, early warning system optimization). This aspect of the intervention is being popularized through research and action and advocacy, proving the added value of a structural response. ACTED will mainly benefit from its expertise in preventing drought risks and early warning systems acquired in Uganda. This will notably be supported by the European Commission.