I just thought I would drop you a note to let everyone know that
I have arrived back in Niger and that Aichatou and I are together
again! Everything seems to be in good shape and I look forward
to getting back to work. Thanks so much for your prayers on our
behalf.
The voyage, however, was tiring. I spent two nights in Casablanca
and had to spend a day searching for the right person to authorize
the airline to cover my expenses. This should have happened automatically
since it was a late change in Air Maroc's flight schedule that
required me to be there for parts of three days, but no one in
Casablanca claimed that they could do this. Finally, with the
help of the RCA's (Reformed Church of America) travel agent in
the United States, we eventually got the authorization. I arrived
at Niamey at 4:30 p.m. this Wednesday morning, October 1, and
have been trying to overcome jet lag and get back to Niger's time
(six-hour difference from Iowa).
Our mailing address in Niger is now: Tom and Aichatou Johnson,
EERN, BP 13 301; Niamey, Niger. For email, you can use either
eern-tj@intnet.ne or johns632@msu.edu
(it is forwarded to the other address).
I've attached the news article below about Niger, since it gives
a general overview about life here. It’s from IRIN, that
is, the United Nations’ Integrated Regional Information
Networks. For more news about Niger is available at IRIN's Web
site, click
here.
NIAMEY, 2 October (IRIN) - Dressed in a tattered T-shirt and
dirty shorts, 10-year old Souleyman approached a UN Children's
Fund (UNICEF) car that was packed near one of the only two supermarkets
in Niger's capital, Niamey on Sunday.
Leaning on the window, he stretched out his hand to beg for
money. Moments later, Souleyman was joined by a blind man led
by a six-year-old boy. Soon a crowd formed, all hands reaching
out to the car for help.
In this city of 600,000 people but few cars and no traffic
jams, hundreds eke a living by begging. They left their rural
homes hoping for a better life, only to end up in squalid shantytowns
that have mushroomed around Niamey.
Unemployment in Niger is high. In the searing 38-50 degrees
Celsius heat, Niamey's unemployed have had to develop creative
ways of survival. Some grow crops within city spaces, including
on road banks and former flower gardens. Many of these are small
sorghum and millet gardens.
"Poverty is written on the people's faces," an aid
worker who has lived in Niger for five years told IRIN. "It
is not just in the capital, but everywhere you go in the country.
People live on extremely little."
Some are vendors or small business people. They man telephone
booths, coffee machines, shine shoes and sell in makeshift roadside
kiosks. All manner of goods are sold in the kiosks, including
fruits, biscuits, non-food items and even piles of grass.
Outside the UNICEF car, a vendor on realising that no one was
interested his oranges, ran a few yards away and returned with
mangoes. Still nobody seemed interested.
"I could run for my beautiful bananas," he shouted
out in exasperation.
Niger, a vast country of 1,267,000 sq. km was ranked second
poorest country in the world, on the UN Development Programme's
Human Development Report of 2002. It has a population of 11
million.
Nearly two thirds of the people do not have sufficient income
for their basic needs, including food, clothing, clean water
and shelter. It is estimated that 42-50 percent live on about
US $124 a year. The rest live on $71-$89.
Those who have jobs are mainly employed by the government which
has about 40,000 civil servants. However they earn an average
of US $100 a month. With this meager salary, they cater for
10-15 extended family members each, a government official told
IRIN.
To supplement incomes, the civil servants who live in the few
government houses in Niamey keep livestock, including cows,
goats and sheep in the city. It is for these animals that grass
is sold on the roadsides.
"To lose a job in the civil service here is equal to death,"
he said. "To go without pay is also a very painful experience."
Until the late 1990s, Niger's civil servants could go without
pay for several months. The current government led by President
Mamadou Tandja under his National Movement for the Society in
Development party, has reversed this.
Tandja, who was elected President in 1999, prioritised civil
service pay. His government developed innovative ways to pay
off arrears, including allocating parcels of land to those owed.
Second poorest country – United Nations
Development Programme report
According to UNDP, the probability that a child in Niger would
not reach age 40 in 1995-2000 was 41.4 percent. The life expectancy
is estimated at 46 years while adult illiteracy among 15-year
olds and above is 84.1 percent. Nearly 80 percent of the population
is rural.
However the land supports little local food production due
to the arid climate and poor soil. Food insecurity is therefore
a chronic problem, with the children most hit, a UNICEF Niger
report said.
Relief workers say their work is hindered by the vastness of
the country, enormous needs and no infrastructure. The vastness
of the country also creates unique transport difficulties. Ordinary
people at times move around using bulls, donkeys and camels.
On its part, the government has constructed main highways from
Niamey northwards to Arlit on the Libyan border, to Nguigmi
and Diffa linking the southeast to Nigeria and Chad, and linking
the capital to Benin and Burkina Faso in the southwest.
Niger lies on the fringes of the vast African Sahara desert.
According to UNICEF, 75 percent of the people are concentrated
in the southern region. However the whole country experiences
drought about once every 10 years.
Still most of the people are small-scale farmers, growing mainly
sorghum and millet.
"People are reluctant to change their traditional habits,"
the government official told IRIN. "We are used to eating
millet and we'll continue to do so because our fore fathers
ate the same," he quoted farmers as saying.
A former president attempted to promote the planting of beans
because of its nutritional value. He met stiff opposition from
the people who said: "Beans are for people who live along
the coast so we can't eat it."
Niger sunk further into the quagmire of poverty following a
revolt by Tuareg tribes that began in 1990. The Tuaregs accused
the government of failing to deliver on promised economic aid.
The revolt developed into an armed rebellion until 1996.
Poverty reduction strategies
Officials said a lot of money has been pumped into the country
by donors, but not much of its impact is evident. "I think
corruption and mismanagement could be blamed for the sad state
of affairs, although the present government is trying to put
things back on track," an official said.
During 2002-2005, the government and the World Bank developed
a poverty reduction strategy, giving priority to access to essential
social services, including health, education and water. It also
prioritises food security, desertification and natural resource
management.
Matters could however be made worse by the advance southwards
of the desert. Researchers say the movement of the desert is
due to lack of rain and long drought spans, which have also
affected the soil.
"To combat desertification the President had launched
an initiative with rural women in which they were encouraged
to collect stones for trapping water, whenever it rains,"
the official explained.
"At the same time, all people are encouraged to dig trances
to catch water and to plant trees," he added. "They
are being encouraged to practice rotational logging. The few
forests available are being classified by the government."
Government is also trying to reform the legal sector, improve
its administrative management and address gender issues, including
children and women's rights. It plans macro-economic reforms,
income generations activities, financial planning and management
and rural electrification.
The UNDP in Niger has chipped-in with poverty alleviation programmes.
In 2000, it started pilot projects to promote local development
in four areas in the country.
"The programme was designed such that local people take
larger responsibility of the projects which include agriculture,
water and sanitation, training for capacity building, education,
health and capacity building," a UN official said.
UNDP works closely with the government and has managed since
2000, to assist thousands of farmers, mainly women to start
and manage vegetable gardens. Thousands of others were trained
on livestock care.
The programme had improved food security through the reinforcement
of population capacity for self-help and self-management of
community development.
"We have seen the success of this initiative which focuses
quite a lot on women. We have seen people buy more cows and
other start small businesses and their lives have changed,"
the official added.
Another agency, the UN children's fund (UNICEF) has a small-scale
programme targeting rural women. UNICEF's Representative in
Niger, Adjibade Aboudou Karimou, said they support rural women
through their associations or cooperatives.
The women are grouped in 100s to develop their own programmes.
These include micro-finance programmes to provide small-scale
grants to group members through their cooperatives. The members
invest the money and repay the credits from their profits.
"UNICEF has an agreement with the cooperatives that the
grant is kept in an account and that it generates interest,"
Karimou told IRIN.
It helps women to establish cereal banks or purchase livestock.
"We can give a group two, five or 10 tons of maize, sorghum
or millet which they can keep and wait to resell when the prices
in the markets are high and buy more cereals when the prices
are low," he added.
"These programmes have had a direct impact on the women,"
Karimou said. "By extension they have also had an impact
in the nutritional status of families. There are some women
who took livestock and have multiplied their production 10 times,"
he added.
Together with other UN agencies like UNICEF, UN Population
Fund (UNFPA) and the World Food Programme (WFP), UNDP plans
to set up a more comprehensive poverty eradication programme
for 2004-07.
[ENDS]
IRIN-WA
Tel: +225 22-40-4440
Fax: +225 22-41-9339
Email: IRIN-WA@irin.ci
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