The objective of the programme was to reduce the vulnerability of Niger’s agriculture to drought, to jump-start the rural economy and to increase the productivity of the agricultural and pastoral production systems.
Project
activities would include:
- rehabilitation and development of small-scale irrigation schemes, and rehabilitation and strengthening of support services;
- introduction, on a pilot basis, of improved local techniques for soil and water conservation designed to be manageable and replicable by farmers, and assistance to the Government of Niger in planning a consistent conservation policy and an appropriate institutional support system;
- creation and strengthening of local-level herders' associations to improve the herders' ability to manage businesses and natural resources; providing the groups with veterinary supplies, credit and training to improve productivity and environmental sustainability; and
- developing, in coordination with an intervention financed by the United States Agency for International Development, a programme for applied small-scale irrigation and agronomic research;
Implementation of the pastoral development component was hampered owing to insufficient financing. However, 43 herder groups (composed of 9 000 families) were formed and 6 350 sheep and goats were distributed on credit to the beneficiaries.
Access to inputs and infrastructure
| Planned | Achieved | |
| Make herd reconstruction
credit available for households to bring their herds up to the
minimum level required for subsistence (three tropical livestock
units/person) through the purchase of small ruminants. Eligible
herders included those surviving on food aid from WFP, remittances
from relatives, or minor agricultural and dry season activities.
Set up a cereal bank with WFP support. Stocks were to be sold to members in the dry season and replenished directly after the harvest. Improve animal health in cooperation with the herders' groups. Activities were to include support for the current cattle vaccination campaign and extension to goats and sheep. Support included provision of vaccines; construction of corrals; and training of herder group members or auxiliaries to undertake systematic veterinary treatments against Vitamin A deficiency and internal parasites and occasional treatments against diarrhoeas and pulmonary infection. Herders' groups were also to receive training in supplementary feeding of selected animals with decorticated cottonseed. |
Seventeen herders'
groups (out of 43) received credit for the purchase of 6 350
sheep and goats. The number of individuals benefiting from this
credit was not reported in the MTE report.
Forty-three functioning cereal banks were installed (one for each herders' group formed), financed by revolving funds. The programme channelled veterinary inputs through the herders’ groups. The nature and quantity of these inputs were not stated in the MTE report. |
| Planned |
|
Achieved |
| Create 70 herders' groups of approximately 30 households each over a period of three years. These groups were to be organized around six pastoral centres built, equipped and staffed by the programme. Each centre was to provide veterinary, community and cooperative support services such as group management training and literacy. Train 24 livestock cooperative agents in the six pastoral centres, and train a total of 385 herders in management techniques, especially functional literacy and accounting, and in human health. The herders to be trained were to be nominated by the herders' groups. |
Forty-three herders' groups were created, for a total of 9 000 families. The pastoral agents were not trained owing to budget constraints.
|
| Planned | Achieved | |
| Production and marketing credit was to be made available to members of herders' groups where members had large herds for production, and to herders' groups receiving herd reconstruction credit. | Progress in the disbursement of production and marketing credit is not reported in the MTE. |
| The programme aimed to introduce soil and water conservation measures as tools for rehabilitating degraded agricultural land. |
||
| Planned |
Achieved |
|
| Rehabilitate 500 ha of degraded land and bring it back into production. Introduce conservation land-use on marginal lands such as woodlots, fodder reserves and pasture, by applying techniques such as 'half moons', V-shaped micro-catchments, stonewalls and sub-soiling. Decrease the run-off of non-productive soil by stonewalls and contour ridging; implement dune fixation; treat gullies by planting on the banks; and build loose rock water-spreading weirs and windbreaks on the plateaux. Establish a nursery of 25 000 plants in order to provide seedlings for plantation activities. |
Progress in these activities was not reported in the MTE. |
|
- Adequate financing should be assured for any proposed activities before implementation. If funding fails, activities should be scaled down in a controlled manner.
- Community-level cereal banks financed by revolving funds may help to guarantee food security.
