Food Security
Food insecurity in Niger concerns about half of the population since April. Focus on the situation there and the project Women and Food Security led by the consortium Alliance Agricole Internationale under the supervision of CECI.
As drought persists and harvests dwindle, men are being forced to leave their villages for the city in search of money to feed their families. Women and children are left behind, and as a result, the rates of malnutrition are increasing dramatically. Since April 2009, the Women and Food Security project (FSA), funded by CIDA, has been underway in 5 communes of the Tahoua region in Niger. The women, who must provide for their families, play a key role in the Nigerien government’s national strategy for food security. In a country where 7.8 of the 13.2 million people have been declared as living in acute to moderate food insecurity, the Tahoua region alone has seen 33.9% of households hit by critical food insecurity. Directed by the Alliance Agricole Internationale consortium under CECI’s leadership, the Women and Food Security team deals with this state of extreme food vulnerability in its intervention zone and is obtaining encouraging results, particularly in terms of prevention.
In villages where the Women and Food Security project operates, the majority of men have had to leave their homes to look for work, and the women must provide for the families – hence their key role in the Nigerien government’s national food security strategy. Under CECI’s leadership, the project is carried out by the AAI (Alliance agricole internationale) consortium, which was founded in 2004 in order to combine the expertise of the SOCODEVI (Société de coopération pour le développement international) and the UPA DI (Union des producteurs agricoles Développement international) with that of CECI. The Women and Food Security project is being developed in a severe food insecurity crisis caused by unprecedented shortages in the 2009 crop year such that authorities had to issue an international call for help last March. The project has therefore had to deal with an extreme state of food vulnerability and is nevertheless obtaining encouraging results, particularly in terms of prevention. The implementation of a community tool for monitoring food security is currently in progress. Its main objectives are to empower village populations and city councilors and to develop and maintain the early warning system. The creation of management committees in all the FSA project villages as well as functional literacy education and training for their members will enable close collaboration between the people and relevant authorities, which will in turn encourage a timely application of local solutions.
Photos of the project in Niger (credit : David Champagne)
