By Niandou Ibrahim, CARE Niger
“My two small fields produce 80 bales of millet on average each year. This year, I only harvested one bale,” said Aichatou Saidou, seated on a mat, her gaze fixed somewhere in the dusty sky of Mani Ada, a village in the commune of Bagaroua, in the region of Tahoua.
It is 1 p.m. this Saturday March 21, 2010. It would seem that the acrid and relentless stranglehold of scarlet haze and sweltering heat are collaborating to intensify the sufferings of man and beast in this region of Central Niger.
“I have been responsible for the house while my husband has worked in Cameroon for the past several years. I live with my four children. The oldest is 14 years, and the youngest is seven. The middle two are girls. In a normal year, the harvest from our two plots of land and the small bits of paid work that my children do is enough to feed us for all 12 months. In a normal year, we would stockpile bales of millet that we harvest, and rely on them throughout our farm work from May to September, in order to keep the whole family working in the fields. From October to April, we earn money by working for wealthier families doing labour such as carrying water or firewood, or other domestic work.
“This year, there is no money. We are living on the food that CARE distributed in our village. And now the month of May, and the farm work, is coming up quickly,” added Aichatou.
Maman Chekarou, the mayor of Bagaroua, stated that 78 percent of villages (36 out of 46) in her commune are living in ‘a state of calamity’. She explained that “yes, the government opened four cereal stores with reduced prices yesterday. Yes, the markets are full of food. But it’s a crisis of access, not of availability. People don’t have money to buy food. Even the coping strategy of selling livestock to buy food doesn’t work anymore, because nobody is buying the animals. The rare pasture that is left is buried by the sandstorms.”
It is because of this that CARE’s cash-for-work activities, cash transfers and free food distributions are so appreciated and needed in our region and in other affected regions of Niger, she added.
“We closely consider the specifics of the planning,” said Alio Namata, Emergency Coordinator for CARE Niger. “So as not to destabilize the market, we provide free food distributions for extremely vulnerable families only, those who cannot participate in paid activities. The most vulnerable families are identified by trained, trusted village committees in more than 100 villages in the region, in coordination with the local authorities.”
Niger is now in a real race against time. The government launched an appeal for emergency assistance for 5,755,493 people who are in the same level of crisis, or worse, as Aichatou Saidou in the village of Mani Ada.
CARE, with more than 60 years’ experience in emergency response, is providing immediate assistance to people affected by the food crisis, but we are also planning to help people recover after the disaster has passed, and we continue the fight against the root causes of food crises in the Sahel region.
About CARE: CARE Niger was established in 1974 to respond to the famine affecting the country, and has worked on several projects that are relevant for food security since then, notably to strengthen good governance and sustainable livelihoods.
In recent years, CARE Niger has been focusing on strengthening governmental health and sanitation services and nutrition programmes, for example via the training of community health-workers and awareness-raising; implementing savings and loan associations as well as programmes to improve agricultural techniques; promoting good governance in the local management of water resources and livestock; and supporting community-based mechanisms to plan for crises and mitigate their impact.
CARE is planning on extending its work on disaster management and prevention, to help create sustainable livelihoods for 150,000 households in extreme poverty.