Update on the 2005 Niger food crisis
5 February 2008
Tajae is one of the villages that CARE supported during the 2005 food crisis with a series of free food distributions.
CARE staff are now working with the community in Tajae to develop an innovative 'cash transfers programme'. The idea is to give regular, small amounts of cash to the most vulnerable people in the village to invest in generating an income. This income will make them better able to weather future droughts and any other unexpected events, which would previously have wiped out their precarious livelihoods and pushed them over the edge into emergency.
By helping people beyond their current hand-to-mouth strategies, and supporting them to build up reserves in this way, CARE’s activities will help them mitigate future crises.
The community and local authorities themselves have helped to determine how much cash people should receive, in how many instalments, when, and what support they should be given afterwards. They are also responsible for identifying who is most in need.
The cash is given to the women, on behalf of the entire household. Often the women will form small women’s groups which act as a kind of small bank – collectively saving a small amount of the cash, which they can then take out when times get hard.
CARE supports these groups with advice on investing. For example, rather than buying a goat to fatten up and sell immediately, they will be encouraged to buy a couple of goats to breed from, growing their assets in the long-term.
By running seed and tool fairs, we are promoting the use of drought resistant crops and farming practices that will help people to steadily increase their agricultural production, alongside the cash transfers. At the national level, we are working to link communities into the national early warning system so that they are able to give locally-specific and timely information about when food shortages may be imminent.
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