Washington, DC — As Africare celebrates its 35 year anniversary this week, representatives from the group's Niger program came to Washington to discuss the food crisis in the West African nation and the efforts underway to tackle hungre and promote development. Africare was established in 1970 in response to a previous famine in Niger and has since become one of the largest American non-governmental organizations working in Africa. Niger, which has a population of 11 million and ranked last on this year's United Nations development index, suffers periodic bouts of food shortage. This year's food crisis, due in part to drought and last year's locust attacks, has attracted some media attention but has recently been overshadowed by disasters in other parts of the world.
Al-Hassana Idriss Outman, Africare's Niger Country Representative, Aklou Sidi Sidi, Niger Project Coordinator, Myron Golden, Regional Director for the West Africa Region, and Marie Aughenbaugh, Administrative Officer, talk about Africare's anniversary, development programs, and the future of aid in Niger. Excerpts:
You are here 35 years after Africare first started working with a food crisis in Niger, and now there is a major drought again on your anniversary. What would you say has changed?
Golden: Well, Niger is a land-locked, Sahelian country and a large percentage of its terrain is desert. It's always going to be a challenge within the environment that exists there to have high levels of agricultural production. Since its independence in the 1960, Niger has been one of Africa's more stable countries in terms of political stability. It has, relative to its neighbors, a fair amount of infrastructure, and various governments have pretty much governed in an acceptable manner.
With all of that, the country remains one of the poorest on a per capita basis. Food production remains an issue for the country. Some of the same problems that created the drought in the early 1970's created the drought today, including: agricultural production, provision of hydraulic resources, and dealing with environmental degradation.
Outman: Well, I think the main problem is environment, because most of the land is sand and rocky area. Niger is a large country with 1.3 million square kilometers, but only 11 percent is exploitable, of which only three percent can be put into production. And over the years, as people put this three percent into production, if there is poor rainfall or natural disasters like the locusts of last year, the production is threatened.
Sidi: The differences are that during the drought of the 1970s there were no early-warning systems in place. That's the first difference. In the 70s there weren't many NGOs and there weren't any development agencies that could have foreseen crisis. In 1984 and during the 70s, the warning mechanisms weren't sufficiently developed.
On the other hand, during the crisis of this year, the crisis was anticipated by many different NGOs who were in place. To a degree, one had effectively prepared early-warning systems. However, there was a certain disconnect between the NGOs that were present, like Africare for example, reacting along with other NGOs to the coming crisis and the actual lack of action and reaction by the state to alert people of the actual crisis situation
This year's crisis does not have many of the same negative components compared to the crises of 1970 and 1984 because during those years, people actually lost their productive capital, especially their cattle. Therefore, these previous cases are examples of true famines because it was a matter of a pastoral zone where villages simply couldn't produce any food.
However, this year, there were many different causes for the crisis that simply combined and created the situation we saw: a locust invasion, bad rainfall, and also a weakening of agricultural production due to export-oriented farming.
Thus, these are the combined effects that led to the crisis in Niger this year. The crisis is not however systematic and ubiquitous but rather a matter of many separate "pockets of crises." The zones where Africare has been present, one can find a cadre of programs aimed to increase food security. These zones didn't experience the food crisis for the simple fact that they had already undertaken the necessary actions a priori.
The crisis was above all portrayed in Maradi where we hadn't been. Basically, the catastrophe affected many aspects of food security, primarily because it was a problem of malnutrition, especially of children, which MSF revealed.
Africare also responded to the crisis because these were areas not covered by the food security program. You see here the differences in how some people were prepared for a crisis as such and were prepared and knew when the crisis had arrived and the problem is one of state reaction. The NGOs knew that the crisis existed.
Golden: He's saying implicitly, 35 years ago there were no NGOs in place, there was no international presence. One of the differences this time was that some of the international community and those present in the country saw that the factors existing might lead to a drought and we were able to do something.
Since we were there and because we were able to take a lot of preventive measures in Agadez, especially with nutrition related to mothers and children, Agadez is not one of those places that was more stricken than others. This particular drought or crisis could have been mitigated if there were more NGOs in Niger doing what we are doing.
Can you give us specific examples of Africare programs in Agadez?
Sidi: We have already distributed 1,500 tons of cereal during the drought period. We already cover 168 villages that are in the Agadez region and are covered by our distribution network. Previously, there were alerts from the region that mobilized the international response.
There has been a response that has more or less effectively combated the effects of the crisis because the food security programs put in place by Africare had foreseen the crisis because the Africare programs in Niger are based on the agricultural calendar which has defined the tools we have and has allowed us to effectively know the weather that will cover production and when the drought period, beginning in April and concluding in June, will come.
Thus, during this drought period, farmers are in need of assistance because they are out of reserves and in June, everywhere, it is the beginning of the new agricultural season. Thus, one can estimate that this is the critical period and that we need to assist in development during this period. Thus, the development actions must be synchronized with the agricultural season. Our Food-For-Work program, for example, corresponds with the period of drought.
Myron: What he has described is our emergency program. Now we have an on-going annual program of assistance to Agadez that is substantial and that also provides food and nutrition.
Sidi: The general program has five dimensions and three main strategic objectives. The first objective is the reinforcement of capacities in villages so that they take charge of their food security problems. We go in to assist with capacity-building.
The second objective is to follow-up on the programs, to increase the agricultural production and to protect the environment. Thus it is an objective that includes all the issues of augmenting productivity, whether it is agricultural or pastoral.
There are also intermediary results with each villager mobilizing a certain number of individual strategies to attain the overall goal. For example, as part of the set up of cereal banks there has been the creation of water works and the improvement of water quality and access. Another capacity-building strategy includes fertilizing different agricultural and pastoral zones and improving access to techniques to increase respective production levels.
We are also undertaking development activities improving, for example, the forest deficit and also, the creation of cattle stores or intra-agricultural stores such as a cereal banks.
The third objective touches more upon the questions of life enhancement. It is the improvement of one's nutritional state and also of sanitation of children 0-5 years and of women during their childbearing age. This is a matter of relating to the adoption of best practices to increase the health of the children.
Basically, we are attempting to improve the sanitation standards of women and children. For example, our annual Food-For-Work has aided in this process and it is through this that we have distributed about 1,500 tons of cereals. After securing basic food security one must look at other aspects of food security.
Each village where we work is using local indicators to advance their understanding of agricultural seasons to determine whether the year will be good or bad. For example, there are birds, that if they make their crying call, the year will likely be bad. And if they do not, it will be good. These are local indicators.
It is of course an empirical strategy but that nevertheless gives us a link between science and actual observations on the ground. Villagers are currently in contact with us to give us their local knowledge to avoid a crisis and to function as a basic indicator in place to prepare for any potential crisis.
Are these reports formulated on an annual basis or do they function on a running basis?
Sidi: It is an integrated system. It is an evaluative system that works very well because the evaluation consists of using a pragmatic fashion to see whether a village is responding to indicators of a coming crisis. Thus, I think that the exercises is one in which the villagers are becoming well versed with. This is not an automatic thing but something that is a result of programs in place that we are currently working to bolster.
The climate is not something you can change easily. Do you expect that 35 years from now Niger is still going to facing the same problems with food shortages?
Outman: There are many aspects. What we can do as a development organization is to train the people, build the capacity of the people and get them prepared to do some mitigation.
Golden: I think with massive investment the situation could be easily eradicated. After all, Israel has made quite a bit of progress in transforming the desert. The president of Niger often talks about the investments he would like to make in addressing the aquifers of the country. It requires massive capitol investment and unfortunately there are just not those kinds of resources or investments available for Africa.
Do you see any progress in the structure of aid giving, such as a movement towards reconstruction or prevention?
Golden: The present food crisis has occurred partially because of what we call "development progress." We are now also dealing with free market forces in parts of Africa. Governments in past times, pre-colonial and recently, used to store food and made sure they had marketing boards that got food to the production deficit areas first of all. Those are no longer the systems in place.
"Developmentalists" have urged other kinds of systems of supply and demand; sell the food where prices are highest. But that makes the people who live on less than a dollar a day even more vulnerable today. Can they compete with those 'haves' who can afford to buy food? So you are also talking about economic distribution issues and issues of market forces. If you look at Africa there are some segments of people who cannot afford to buy food, even when it is available.
What would you say is the current situation in Niger, now that the international limelight has moved on to Hurricane Katrina and the earthquake in Pakistan?
Golden: Let me speak in general. First of all, Katrina has knocked Niger off the map. The international community is very good at making emergency responses, or short-term humanitarian responses, but when it comes to longer term development planning or approaches, that would have to be in somebody's budget for Africa, and we're not seeing it.
The Gates Foundation is concerned with it, and they have issued a major request for application for NGOs and other institutions to respond to these food situations and deficits that are occurring in Africa. So if you consider the Gates Foundation a leader in looking at these things on a long-term basis, maybe there's cause for optimism.
I can make a prediction. There will be more drought, there will be more pockets of famine, there will women and children with severe malnutrition annually. Because that's happening in Africa every year, constantly, in a number of countries. Ironically, the rainy season is predicted to be better than in past years. In some of the programs we've started we've learned how to "drought-proof" a little more, and we are talking about local cereals banks to store food for seasons of drought.
Outman: The rainy season was good compared to last year, the harvest is also predicted to be good compared to last year. But people at the local level have sold all of their assets during the crisis. In addition to that they have contracted some debts, at 200 percent interest or more. So this may continue to have a negative impact on the people. When they have the harvest this year, even if it is good, they have to recover by buying back assets, paying back the loans, and then maybe they have nothing again. In some areas it may be better next year, but in some areas the negative impact this crisis will continue.
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How does the food for work project work, is that an emergency response project or ongoing?
Outman: Actually the food for work program is a component of our food security program, which is designed to respond to a specific time in the year where the situation becomes difficult. In this period of two or three months, during which people have stocks that have been depleted, we ask that each village identify certain activities which are in their own profit. And most important is soil defense and soil restoration. Every year we give them time to do soil restoration and we give them the food in compensation for their effort.
There has been an increase in NGOs in Niger. Can you talk a little bit about the aid culture there? Is there competition or how do you interact or cooperate with other NGOs?
Golden: Africare has been designated a leader of a major American NGO consortium. So in our consortium we have several of the major American NGOs; there's Africacare, Catholic Relief Services, CARE, and the Helen Keller International. This consortium we are a part of, and our programs in Niger, are very much guided by the government of Niger. I have to say that, because there are many countries where NGOs are funded to work independently from governments. That's not the case in Niger at all.
Marie: With all the new NGOs and those who want to come and set up in Niger, one of the issues being faced is the problem of coordination of everybody's activities, such as knowing who is where and who is doing what. So locally that was an issue NGOs were dealing with.
Golden: The worst case of that was in Rwanda after the genocide. The government of Rwanda kind of soured on NGOs, and it's taken some time to recover from that. So that's why we're very sensitive to the fact that although we're NGOs, we don't want to take advantage of a situation.
The President of Niger recently said something similar, that NGOs were trying to take advantage of the situation to advance their own agendas. Can you comment on that?
Golden: I met with the President of Niger when he was here in July and our people are in constant contact with the government there. We have to be very, very careful. We have encouraged Niger to be a growing democracy. So you have the government in power, and you have the opposition.
When you spotlight a country, and say that there are people dying, there's a crisis, and the government has mismanaged the situation, one of the things you do, rightly or wrongly, is that you fuel the opposition. I'm trying to provide some rationale for the position the government of Niger has taken all along during this crisis.
There is an African proverb that can describe the situation: "a father who cannot feed his children is not a father at all." So would you expect a chief of state, to come out and admit the in essence he failed to provide food to all of his people? Then also, when you really look at the percentages, there are pockets of need. And as I said, the situation was based on the environment and the locust crisis of last year, but there were also some economic issues, and the government of Niger was trying to get the international community to see that. But the international community preferred to have pictures of starving babies wherever they could find them and say that these are the current images of what's happening throughout Africa.
