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Creative Solutions, especially Climate Resilient Solutions, Needed to Tackle Crises and Chronic Poverty in Niger

Pays
Niger
Sources
GOAL
Date de publication

Niger, one of the world's poorest countries, has been battling frequent droughts, floods, conflict, and wide-spread poverty for many years. In a country with a population of 22 million, these factors leave millions of people in need of humanitarian assistance on an ongoing basis.

Irish humanitarian aid organisation, GOAL, has been present in the Sahel region country since 2005, and in 2021, supported almost 600,000 people, with a staff of 53, with emergency response interventions in areas of nutrition, food and non-food-item distribution, and disease outbreak response. Emergency response is not a standalone activity, however - GOAL uses a two phased approach of emergency response and future impact mitigation. Strengthening local systems to be able to withstand future shocks is an increasing focus of GOAL’s humanitarian interventions around the world, and Niger is no different.

Beyond a systems approach, working with communities and individuals remains a vital route to alleviating poverty for vulnerable populations. In a country where agriculture accounts for 40% of the GDP, finding climate resilient solutions to weathering the impact of climate change is vital to avoiding repeated crises in agricultural communities.

The adoption of ‘climate smart’ field drainage systems, mixed with resilient strands of seeds in home farms helps to ensure that seasonal floods and droughts can be withstood. GOAL Niger Team member, Nahoum Issihaka is passionate about the transformation he wants to see in communities he works with.

"I work closely with communities to help build resilient agriculture. Climate change is one of the biggest threats that the communities I work with face. We work with them to come up with innovative and resilient techniques for farming, but sometimes solutions can be really simple.”

"One of these methods are Zaï Holes. This is a traditional technique for rehabilitating poor, crusted and otherwise unusable agricultural land. It involves digging holes manually to allow runoff water and organic matter to concentrate in one point. This counterbalances the effects of drought and human activity that often lead to the degradation the agricultural lands.”

“We were taught modern ways to practice Zaï farming” says Bachir Zabeirou, a subsistence farmer from Gueza Dan Alkali village, Zinder region. “I also bought modern seeds for millet and beans which I sowed in this field. Before when we sowed, it did not grow like it does now. Today you can see that the plants grow well. We hope to have a good harvest, thank God.”

In Zinder, southeast Niger, with the support of UNITLIFE, a United Nations initiative protecting human capital by solving the challenge of inequality from birth, Nahoum and his team are helping communities create sustainable ways of maintaining food security.

The main aim of GOAL’s agricultural interventions in Zinder is to ensure that communities can produce their own food and that women become empowered through independent food production, for themselves and their families. In 2021, GOAL reached over 100,000 people with curative nutrition projects in Niger.

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For media queries, please contact:

Brian Vandamme
GOAL Communications Department
bvandamme@goal.ie
+353833767513