The Irish Red Cross has been active in Niger, frequently ranked as the world’s poorest country, since 2005, responding then to an especially severe food shortage of that year.
In the subsequent years, Irish Red Cross has established Niger as its priority country of intervention on the African continent working to address the underlying causes of vulnerability and build local resilience.
Our activities are undertaken with the generous support of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and Irish Aid. Targeting over 26,000 people across some 45 villages, our programme aims specifically to improve local food security in the region of Zinder through capacity building of our local partners, the Niger Red Cross, agricultural extension, and strengthening of local livelihood strategies as well as local community-based early warning systems.
Our agricultural extension activities include training on animal husbandry and crop production including the establishment of demonstration plots designed to promote diversification in household food production and consequently food consumption. In this context, associations for women are specially created in lowland communities with particular access to water and produced harvests to meet family consumption in addition to surpluses for sale as a means to generate alternative income streams.
Women harvesting okra in the Garin Karimoune commuinity as part of efforts to boost and diversify local food production. Photo: Irish Red Cross
Technical and management support also is also provided to 49 new or rehabilitated seed storage units and their administrative committees which help sustain access to affordable seed for food production while an additional 7,761 people benefit from safe access to clean water through the construction of new water points and hygiene promotion activities.
In addition, new committees were established as part of a broader network to collect a variety of data including rainfall and cereal and livestock prices as part of efforts to identify early indicators of potential food shortages. Unfortunately, by the end of 2011, fears were realised of severe food shortages occurring again during 2012 as a result of poor crop yields, erratic rainfall and pest infestations.
