Niger

A mother and child at a feeding center in Zinder, Niger, run by Médecins Sans Frontières.

In Niger, hunger is a part of life. A “hunger season,” as it’s called, occurs during the months leading up to a harvest, when supplies of food from the last harvest are depleted. The difference between a normal hungry season and a bad one is measured in terms of how early therapeutic feeding centers begin treating the waves of severely malnourished young children.

2010 was a bad year in Niger. The results of a government survey were that 17 percent of children younger than 5 were acutely malnourished and in mortal danger. Any number higher than15 percent is classified an emergency by the U.N. World Health Organization.¹

At any given time, half of all children in Niger are chronically malnourished. While it might appear that nothing can be done, the truth is that the hunger season could be wiped from Niger’s calendars. The international community needs to do more to help. The government of Niger is already investing 14-15 percent of its budget in the agricultural sector, putting it among the highest in that category in all of Africa.² It’s a matter of whether there is enough political will to confront the challenges in a country that consistently ranks at or near the bottom of the U.N. Human Development Index.

According to UNICEF, 80 percent of child deaths are linked to lack of access to clean water and sanitation. Less than a third of the rural population has safe drinking water. Despite being covered by desert, Niger is rich in water reserves—the country uses only 20 percent of its renewable water resources. Niger’s government is investing tens of millions of dollars in water projects, but the costs of accessing most of the water are huge, well beyond what it can afford.³ Few investors besides the government have been willing to bear the risks.

Niger and other countries of the Western Sahel are on the front lines of climate change.⁴ Niger and its neighbors are emitting a fraction of the greenhouse gases of richer countries that have the resources to help. The frequency of droughts in the region reduces agricultural production.

Because development challenges have been ignored, making emergency response a necessity, the hunger season remains on the calendar. Early warning systems have been developed to keep track of weather-related conditions and how they could affect domestic agriculture production and imports from neighboring countries. What this has accomplished is ensuring that when an emergency occurs, it has been known about for months in advance. Yet the global response is never soon enough or generous enough to prevent millions of people from going hungry. What’s needed goes beyond an early warning system to an early-response system.