Washington, DC — Mahamadou Issoufou assumed the presidency in Niger on April 7 after winning second-round balloting in March. A long-time political figure in the landlocked west African nation, He served as prime minister of the land-locked west African nation from 1993-95, headed the National Assembly for the next two years, and was opposition leader and a candidate in four presidential elections over two decades.
The 2011 election, conducted by the military regime that ousted the previous president, Mamadou Tandja, who tried to extend his tenure by manipulating the constitution, was generally judged to have been fair. Since taking office, Issoufou has been tackling problems ranging from drought-induced food shortages, terrorism threats and holding previous military rulers accountable for their actions. He has also tried to minimize the impact on Niger of civil unrest in Libya, the country's powerful northern neighbor. Thousands of Libyans have sought refuge in Niger, and an undetermined number of Niger citizens who worked in Libya lost employment and their ability to send remittances home.
Issoufou was one of four Francophone leaders who met with President Barrack Obama late last month in Washington DC. He outlined actions he is taking in several specific areas during an interview with AllAfrica. Excerpts from a translation of his remarks, which were made in French :
On health
The first thing I did after coming into power was to hire 450 doctors that were in Niger but were unemployed. In a country that had only 50 percent health coverage and only 350 doctors, one of my first options was to put these 450 doctors back to work, and hire 1000 nurses as well. Including doctors and nurses, we've recruited more than 1600.
We're going continue within the next five years to increase the number of people hired to improve the health conditions of the people of Niger. We're hoping that in the years to come there will be an increase in the resources provided to Niger through USAID, NGOs, and other friends and partners. One of our big projects is to try to reduce infant and child mortality. Seven out of 1000 women die in childbirth, and 200 out of 1000 do not live till age five.
We'd like to put an end to this situation. We'd like to reduce the maternal mortality rate to four out of 1000. For example, we're trying to increase the number of women in childbirth who have access to midwives, because very few women currently give birth with any kind of assistance.
On education
Education is also a priority for us – 25 percent of our resources will be invested in education. In the five years to come, we intend to invest $3 billion in education. We're going to make school obligatory and free until age 16. We'll particularly stress girls' education. One thing we're hoping to do is to keep all girls in school until age 16, to reduce the number of early marriages.
We've decided to invest in technical training. Professional and technical education represents only eight percent of education in Niger currently – a very weak rate. We'd like to get this up to 25 percent in five years.
And we've decided to strengthen higher education and develop scientific and technical training. We believe that for competitiveness and productivity of the economy, investment in technical and scientific education is very important. The reason we're making education a priority is that a high performing economy needs people with technical and human resource training.
In this way, we're promising to have accelerated development in the years to come. We're hoping to have seven per cent growth in the economy this year. And the IMF thinks Niger will have one of the highest performing economies.
On agriculture and food security
Agriculture is another priority of our government. We have a program that we call the three N's: Nigeriens Nourishing Nigeriens - NNN. We've decided to invest $1.8 billion in agriculture, because we're a Sahelian country and unfortunately experience climatic problems. We have recurring droughts, and each time there's a drought there's also famine.
What we're trying to do is increase food security. One way to do this – to keep Niger from experiencing famine every time – we're giving priority to agriculture, based on the periods of rain, and providing citizens with seeds, fertilizers, and agricultural products that they need.
We also want to promote irrigated agriculture for additional seasonal production. We have surface and underground water and are hoping to promote agriculture in all regions of the country. The Kendaji Dam is a project that could irrigate 120 thousand hectares of land along the river, in addition to producing electricity.
We intend to promote livestock breeding as well. As part of this initiative, we're trying to increase the processing of livestock, the production of meat and milk. Our hope is that periods of famine soon will be a distant, distant memory in Niger.
On sustainable north-south economic development
Growth rates in developed countries are lower than the growth rates in emerging and developing countries. Given that, it will be logical for the developed economies to look toward the South to get out of their economic problems. The IMF was developed in the 1940s to support global economic demand, with the idea that if one country was experiencing weaker growth or weaker demand, the stronger economies could prop it up.
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
I also remember that after World War II, the United States invested 4.5 percent of its GDP in the Marshall Plan as part of the post-war reconstruction. It not only helped the European countries, it also helped the U.S. So I would ask developed countries – the United States and others, and individual U.S. states – to invest in Niger and to help their own economies as well.
Terrorism and security
Niger, like other Sahelian countries, is faced with the threat of terrorism, as well as criminal organizations and drug and human trafficking. And I indicated to President Obama, because of the Libyan conflict, all of these other threats have been magnified. On all of these points, I had the impression that our message was heard and well received.
RELATED: Four Presidents Ask Business to Back Democracy with Investment - and Make Money
