A bowl of a sweet milky drink made of millet, water and sugar would be offered to me in each village I visited while in Niger as a development worker in 2003-2004. Once a woman from the village gave me a bag of peanuts and three very skinny, unhappy chickens tied at the ankles with a piece of tattered red cloth. As they clucked and squirmed, I reflected on the generosity of Nigeriens despite the extreme poverty and serious hunger which many villages like this one were suffering. The woman, as a representative of her village, had participated in a nutrition workshop we ran in collaboration with a local NGO and we had returned to visit her to see if participation in the workshop had made any impact. Although this was well before the food crisis in early 2005, it was clear to me even then, that Nigeriens did not have enough food to eat. This is in spite of the fact that there is enough food produced in the world to feed every person according to the World Food Program.

Why is there hunger?

Hunger exists all over the world for many reasons. Natural disasters, war, poverty and poor infrastructure are the main causes of food insecurity and have hit Africa the hardest. It is in sub-Saharan Africa where hunger is most severe. Out of the 852 million people in the world who do not have enough to eat, 815 million live in sub-Saharan Africa.^[i]

Once a woman from the village gave me a bag of peanuts and three very skinny, unhappy chickens tied at the ankles with a piece of tattered red cloth. As they clucked and squirmed, I reflected on the generosity of Nigeriens despite the extreme poverty and serious hunger which many villages like this one were suffering.

Niger’s Food Crisis

In the summer of 2005 world news turned to Niger where severe food shortages brought on by drought and locust swarms affected almost 3 million people, out of a population of 13 million.^[ii] These natural disasters alone cannot fully explain why the food crisis was so terrible. Other factors contributed to the severity of the crisis such as high poverty levels and already existing malnourishment. According to the United Nations Human Development Index, levels of poverty are about 64.4% nationwide while 40% of children are malnourished.^[iii]

Over 80% of Nigeriens rely on subsistence farming and livestock for their survival, yet less than 30% of households in 2004 were actually able to produce enough food to meet their own food needs.^[iv] Families rely on loans or cash earnings from livestock to buy what they are unable to produce. In August of 2004, normally the height of Niger’s rainy season, there was a drought. Large locust swarms ate the crops that did manage to survive, in September and October, which resulted in an unusually poor harvest. The substantial decline in the already insufficient production of staple foods like millet, sorghum, maize and rice forced prices to increase while at the same time household incomes decreased. This made the price of basic food prohibitively expensive.^[v] As John M. Staatz, an agricultural economist at Michigan State University, noted about Niger’s food crisis during an interview with the Council of Foreign Relations, “[Nigeriens’] ability to acquire food collapsed. It wasn’t that there absolutely was no food available, but the food available got priced out of most people’s market because the price of food went up while prices of what they had to sell, mainly livestock, collapsed.”^[vi]

Hunger exists all over the world for many reasons. Natural disasters, war, poverty and poor infrastructure are the main causes of food insecurity and have hit Africa the hardest. It is in sub-Saharan Africa where hunger is most severe. Out of the 852 million people in the world who do not have enough to eat, 815 million live in sub-Saharan Africa.

Short-term Aid vs. Long-term Development

Food aid has been the traditional response to food security crises. However, this is often short-term and does not address the underlying causes of food shortages like poverty and poor agricultural infrastructure. According to Staatz, in order to have a real impact on preventing food shortages countries need to invest in the long-term development of the world’s poorest countries. One example he cites is Mali, which instituted a national food security strategy in 2002 focusing on structural or long-term development. The goals of the program are to increase agricultural productivity and farmers’ income through investment in agricultural training, resources and infrastructure. Rather than reacting to food crises with food aid, as was the case in Niger, Mali’s strategy has been to develop reserves of food in the event of extreme shortages, a food security fund, a famine early warning system and a committee made up of governments and donors to manage the national program.^[vii]

Unfortunately investment in longer term development is often not a popular option among many developed countries because the benefits may not appear for fifteen or twenty years. However, comparing the strategies employed in Mali to Niger, it is clear that a longer-term approach is the better way. In Mali, USAID made a strategic decision to invest in the county’s capacity to manage its own food security, increase economic opportunities for the rural poor, invest in better health care services and education, and support efforts that would make information affecting food security more widely available. This required a more significant investment in the short term, but in the longer term, will save money by not having to pay for expensive rescue missions that respond to famines at the last minute. While USAID spent $36,751,000 in Mali in 2005, Niger only received $14,142,050, $7.5 million of which was new assistance given in response to the 2005 food crisis. As a result, Niger’s food crisis affected many more people and recovery has been very slow. Though Mali did suffer, they were able to recover much more quickly and will be in a better position in the long term to avoid future crises.^[viii]

Relying on short-term aid, which responds only after a crisis hits, is unsustainable and useless in preventing future crises. Niger’s government would benefit from taking a closer look at Mali’s long-term approach and emphasizing theior long term development needs to the international donor community.

Proactive efforts such as investment in a country’s infrastructure rather than reactive last minute responses to a desperate situation not only contributes to the self-sustainability of a country, supporting its capacity to manage its own food security issues, but also helps to minimize wasteful spending of precious resources, which often occurs when severely deprived countries like Niger are suddenly flooded with resources.

What Can Be Done?

Staatz is not saying that people suffering a major food crisis should not be given immediate assistance - rather it’s a matter of preventing food crises before they start. Once Niger’s food crisis hit, long-term investments in education and agricultural infrastructure would have done nothing to save lives. However, had such an approach been taken earlier, much of the suffering the 2005 famine caused could have been avoided. Relying on short-term aid, which responds only after a crisis hits, is unsustainable and useless in preventing future crises. Niger’s government would benefit from taking a closer look at Mali’s long-term approach and emphasizing this to the international donor community.

---

^[i] Ibid. Source: FAO & The State of Food Insecurity in the World, 2003 - FAO & The State of Food Insecurity in the World, 2003, p7. [Accessed 6 November 2005].

^[ii] WFP Emergency Assessment Brief: Niger August 2005. Link to Document [online], p. 3. Source: FAO/WFP/CILSS-AGRHYMET/FEWS-NET"target="_blank">Link to Document 2004. FAO/WFP Crop and Food Supply Assessment Mission to Niger. Rome. [Accessed 6 November 2005].

^[iii] Human Development Reports. Country Sheet: Niger. Link to Document [online]. [Accessed 8 November 2005].

^[iv] Niger Livelihood Profiles. 2005 January. USAID. Link to Document [online]. [Accessed 8 November 2005], p. 11.

^[v] WFP Emergency Assessment Brief: Niger August 2005, op. cit., p. 6.

^[vi] Interview with John M. Staatz on Niger’s food crisis. Interviewer: Lionel Beehner. 16 August 2005. Link to Document [online]. [Accessed 7 November 2005].

^[vii] Michigan State University & USAID/Mali Food Security III Cooperative Agreement Strengthening the Capacity of the Malian Government to Implement its National Food Security Strategy. Link to Document [online]. [Accessed 12 November 2005], p. 2.

^[viii] USAID Assistance to Niger and the Sahel. Link to Document [online]. [Accessed 12 November 2005].




Contributed by Cory McCruden, a writer for Global Envision. Cory McCruden worked in banking and for various NGOs dedicated to creating economic opportunities for the poor. She has worked in New York, Washington DC, Niger and Rwanda. Cory is currently a Rotary Peace Fellow and is pursuing her Masters' in Conflict Resolution at the University of Bradford in the UK.

To read another Global Envision article about the aftermath of the devastating famine in Niger, see Malnutrition Still Shadows Niger's Children.



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