Niger

From 24 to 25 June 2024, the coordination team of the West Africa Food System Resilience Programme (PRSA)/Niger organised a training workshop on gender-based violence for members of the complaints management committees of the 5 intervention communes in the Tillabéry region. The training was run jointly by a specialist in gender-based violence (GBV) and a specialist in social development from PRSA/Niger. It targeted 23 people, including 8 women, and included 10 EAS/HS focal points identified to receive complaints about EAS/HS. At the end of the training, a register was shared with all the EAS/HS focal points for recording sensitive complaints.

As part of the implementation of PRSA activities across the four (4) intervention regions (Diffa, Tahoua, Tillaberi, Zinder), an action plan for the mitigation of EAS/HS risks has been drawn up. The plan includes the training of complaints management committee members and the identification of EAS/HS focal points within the Global Complaints Management Mechanism. The role of PRSA Niger's GPM members is to receive EAS/HS-sensitive complaints, register EAS/HS complaints, provide initial psychosocial support, refer victims to holistic care services (health, psychosocial, legal) and conduct investigations into complaints received.

In accordance with the World Bank's Good Practice Note on Preventing and Responding to Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (SEA) and Sexual Harassment (SH). In investment operations involving civil engineering works, such as the PRSA-NE, activities can have repercussions that can have harmful impacts on the environment and populations. To deal with these impacts, especially social ones, the programme offers communities in its intervention zone a framework for lodging any complaints they may have about the implementation of activities. PRSA has therefore set up a Complaints Management Mechanism (MGP) that includes the dimension of gender-based violence, sexual abuse and exploitation and sexual harassment (GBV/EAS/HS).

Fishing is one of the main economic activities in the Diffa region, with revenues of nearly 70 billion according to the latest statistics from the Ministry of Livestock. It is therefore an activity that makes a major contribution to ensuring food security and combating poverty in the Diffa region, while also helping to create jobs for young people.

However, the fishing industry faces enormous difficulties, which can be summed up as the problem of organising producers, marketing throughout the chain, collection and conservation techniques and infrastructure.

As part of the implementation of the activities of the Programme de Résilience pour la Sauvegarde de la Patrie (Resilience Programme for the Safeguard of the Homeland), the Government of Niger has targeted the fish sector as a key activity to be promoted to support the people of the Diffa region. It was against this backdrop that the West African Food System Resilience Programme in Niger (PRSA_Niger) was asked to strengthen the fish marketing counter in Diffa.

Based on the constraints currently identified at the fish market, the PRSA will focus its activities on rehabilitating the fish marketing centre by: (i) finalising the civil engineering work on the main building, (ii) building the fish market's own water station, (iii) connecting the fish market to the Nigelec network (the Niger electricity company) and, finally, (iv) providing the fish market with refrigerated lorries to facilitate distribution to other regions.

All in all, more than 3,000 beneficiaries will benefit from this support to improve their income from fish marketing in Diffa.

In order to improve the production, access and use of information derived from satellite data in Niger, two (2) satellite data reception stations installed in 2015 at the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock have been rehabilitated with the support of the West African Food System Resilience Programme.

This support, which covers technical equipment and capacity-building for users, will enable these stations to become operational. This equipment provides important real-time information on temperatures, rainfall, vegetation (pastures, crops), the level of water in ponds and bush fires, all of which is used for forecasting and decision-making in the agro-pastoral sector.

This support will enable stakeholders and partners in Niger's agricultural system to better manage information and facilitate planning and decision-making, while contributing to the regional effort to address environment, climate, food security and related issues by improving access to and exploitation of relevant earth observation applications in Africa.

Following the acquisition and installation of the additional equipment, twenty-six (26) technicians, made up of administrators from the Monitoring for Environment and Security in Africa (MESA) stations and thematic specialists, were trained.

The learners were equipped with techniques for managing a MESA-type station, including the station's organisation chart, the operation of the machines and the systems installed, the reception of satellite data and its quality, the processing and archiving of the data received, the handling of current problems and the use of the data received.

With the knowledge they have acquired, the learners are now able to produce ten-monthly bulletins for use by agropastoralists and agricultural producers, while keeping decision-makers informed.

The Central Livestock Laboratory (LOBOCEL) of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock; the Laboratoire d'Insémination Artificielle (LIA) of the Faculty of Agronomy at the Abdou Moumouni University in Niamey and the Laboratoire d'Alimentation Animale (LANA) of the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRAN) under the supervision of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock and the Ministry of Higher Education have just been equipped with modern equipment to facilitate the work of researchers.

This material support, at a total cost of two hundred and eighty-two million six hundred and eighty-seven thousand four hundred and seventy-five (282,687,475) CFA francs, will enable these laboratories to work towards the development of livestock production in Niger, as they are Implementing Agencies (IAs) and partner structures of the Regional Centre specialising in Livestock (CRS-EL), which is now destined to become a Regional Centre of Excellence in Livestock for the West African sub-region at ECOWAS level under the impetus of the Food System Resilience Strengthening Programme (FSSRP) in West Africa.

In the long term, the equipment intended for the Central Livestock Laboratory (LABOCEL) will make it possible, through an agreement with the Ministry responsible, to cover the national annual needs for animal health vaccines, estimated at some 36,500,000 doses, including 25 million doses for small ruminants, 10 million doses for cattle and 1.5 million doses for camels, which used to be imported. To help meet the sub-region's needs, those in charge intend to do their utmost to obtain approval for the vaccines from international institutions in the field.

As far as the Artificial Insemination Laboratory (LIA) in the Faculty of Agronomy is concerned, the acquisition of this equipment will improve the training of skills in the field of Artificial Insemination and will be a reference in the ECOWAS region.

The farmer field school approach is one of the strategies adopted by the PRSA Niger to support the dissemination and large-scale application of knowledge, technologies and Climate Change Intelligent Agriculture (CCIA), with the aim of increasing the resilience and adaptation of producers in the target regions.

With this in mind, the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, through the General Directorate of Agriculture, has signed a 960-producer partnership agreement with the FSRP-Niger to support the implementation of technical capacity-building activities for players in the cowpea and onion sectors, leading to the adoption and gradual intensification of production systems, reinforced by the structuring and development of the target onion and cowpea sectors.

The Farmer Field School (FFS) approach is the framework used for the large-scale dissemination and application of knowledge, technologies and Climate Intelligent Agriculture (CIA) approaches in the PRSA Niger intervention zone.

For the 2023/2024 agricultural season, the PRSA/Niger has set up 30 CEP in the project's 4 intervention zones, namely Diffa, Tillabéry, Tahoua and Zinder.

The implementation cycle for these school fields will cover the period from April to October 2023 for the target crops, in particular cowpeas and onions.

The implementation of these school fields was preceded by the upstream training of 30 Facilitators, who are responsible for the technical implementation and supervision of producers.

At the current stage of the implementation process, 960 farmers have been made aware of the techniques and practices being demonstrated on site and trained by the facilitators. The Tsaida Nomade site (Tahoua Region, Bouza Department, Tama Rural Commune) is home to a training field for demonstrating the performance of the improved Niébe TN5-78 variety at the flowering stage. These farmers are now equipped as local experts to apply and disseminate these technologies in their own fields; to contribute to increasing their own resilience in the face of crises and natural disasters; and to ensure regular monitoring of field school activities at all levels. 

In order to develop the agricultural activities of the population of the Commune of Namaro, located around 50 km from Niamey on the right bank of the River Niger, two key actions are planned: the creation of half-moons over 100 ha and the fixing of dunes over 70 ha on the LATAKABIA  site in the rural commune of Namaro to restore the land. The aim will be to recover 170 ha by building half-moons or fixing dunes, which will contribute to achieving the target of 32,000 ha all 32 communes in the PRSF's intervention zone in Niger.

This municipality is the first to benefit from this support, which will consist of land restoration activities that will generate income for workers, as well as the recovery of 100 ha of glacis and the fixing of 70 ha of dune in order to restore the productive capital of this land.

In the short term, these land restoration activities are an opportunity to fight household poverty, increase household resilience, create jobs for young people and women and recover the vegetation cover through the half-moons that will be made by the beneficiaries who have undertaken carry out the work to standards for the good of the community.

This support for the people of the commune of Namaro is part of the implementation of sub-component 2.2 of the FSRP "strengthening regional food security through integrated landscape management", for which the programme's National Coordination, working with local players, is identifying sites for small-scale irrigation schemes and developing low-lying areas.

In order to develop job opportunities for women and young people in the seed value chain for their social and economic empowerment, the national coordination of the West African Food System Resilience Programme (PRSA) in Niger organised training sessions in the regions of Tillabéry and Tahoua from 27 July to 02 August 2023 for 68 stakeholders in the seed value chain.

These training sessions, facilitated by CORAF, aim to contribute to the scaling up of drought-resistant quality seeds to meet the very high demand for quality seeds in Niger.

Over the course of 3 days, participants learned more about seed regulations in Niger, the seed production process in Niger and related administrative documents, technical standards for producing cowpea, onion and rice seed, technical and agronomic aspects and crop protection.

In addition, these sessions have helped to build the capacity of women's and young people's farming businesses in the multiplication, marketing and management of seed companies, with a view to increasing the supply of quality seed in the communes where the PRSA Niger is active, and women's and young people's entrepreneurship in the seed sector.

As part of the implementation of the West African Food System Resilience Programme (PRSA), Niger is committed to supporting the development of 3 strategic value chains, including the Livestock-Meat-Dairy sector. One of the priorities set by the programme is to strengthen the organisation of players in these sectors.

With this in mind, the PRSA, in partnership with the Directorate for Cooperative Action and the Promotion of Breeders' Organisations (DAC/POE, Ministry of Livestock), organised workshops on the state of play of livestock-meat-milk colleges in the 4 regions (Diffa, Zinder, Tahoua and Tillaberi) in programme's intervention zone.

The aim of this activity is to draw up an inventory of the colleges of the Livestock-Meat-Dairy interprofession, together with action to make them operational for effective development.

These workshops, which brought together all the players in the Livestock-Meat-Dairy sector, provided an opportunity :

• list the various Inter-Professional Groups (IP) in the livestock-meat-dairy sectors in the intervention ;
• carry out an in-depth analysis of the organisations, the way they operate and the governance of the targeted interprofessions
• propose action to promote this value chain with the support of the PRSA.