NIGER PROGRAMME PLAN 2015
1.
Introduction
In Niger, Concern Worldwide continues to operate in a challenging environment with limited access
to basic social services, exposure to extreme climatic events resulting from climate change, outbreaks
of epidemics as well as numerous in challenges linked to generalized poverty, rapid population
growth and regional instability.
Although stable throughout 2014, the security situation in Niger remains worrisome. The on-going
instabilityin Mali, Nigeria and Libya and a volatile internal politics as a result of a feud between the
President and the Chairman of the Assembly obliges humanitarian organizations to be cautious, restrict movements and follow tight security measures. On top of the 40,000 Malian refugees, Niger
hosts another 50,000 forcibly displaced people from Nigeria since 2013. There is a strong likelihood
that the situation could spread further with the potential further massive influx of Nigerian refugees
in Diffa but possibly also in other regions of Niger.
The government's 3-year growth and development strategy (Programme de Développement
Économique et Social) has guided Niger's economic policy since 2012. It aims at maintaining macroeconomic stability while improving the country's public finance management, resilience to external
shocks, and investments in infrastructure, agriculture, health and education. The government also
focuses on strengthening the natural resources management sector, which is expected to grow steadily
in the coming years, and effectively contribute to sustainable growth and poverty reduction. The President’s 3N initiative (Nigeriens Nourissent les Nigeriens) places food security, climate change response
and resilience at the center of the government’s priorities. However, despite the government’s commitment to tackling the multiple difficulties the country faces, efforts have been hindered by the regional security threats and recurrent emergencies, which have directed resources away from longerterm strategies. The political stability remains fragile and this coupled with the upcoming elections in
2016 could further slow down policymaking and implementation, as well as proper budget allocations.
Country Strategic Plan
Time line:
2014 - 2016
Ranked at the bottom of UNDP’s 2014 Human Development Index, Niger continues to suffer from the
effects of climate change, including increasingly severe and frequent natural disasters and progressive
desertification, as well as exponential population growth and structurally limited access to good basic
services. While in times of crisis and during the annual hunger gap season it is a priority amongst
humanitarian organisations to help people in meeting their most basic needs, there is also a long-term
need to build the resilience of the most vulnerable households, to enhance the capacity of government
services and to strengthen the communities’ power to respond to and recover from increasingly frequent crises.
In 2015, Concern Worldwide Niger will continue to support households to build assets and become
more resilient to a changing environment, while continuing to improve access to and the quality of
basic education and health services, as well as water and sanitation infrastructure. Concern Niger
will expand its influence and impact at regional and national-level through results-based advocacy
and information-sharing with non-governmental and governmental partners, While 2014 saw some
significant changes in programming with the close-out of the five-year Child Survival Programme and
Concern’s withdrawal from Illela department, Concern will be entering the final phase of its Integrated Resilience Programme in 2015, consolidating the progress made during the first three years of the
programme while expanding into two further communes. At the same time, Concern will continue to
provide emergency support during the hunger gap season, while seeking innovative solutions,
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through technology and research to increase the impact and effectiveness of its programmes. We will
continue to roll out our strategic commitment in 2015, with renewed emphasis on gender and inequality programming, accountability, more effective HR, stronger support systems and the development
of effective new partnerships.
2.
Programmes
Emergency/Mitigation
Beneficiaries:
Emergency: estimated 4,000 households (cash); 1,200 cases of Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) with
medical complications, 8,000 cases of SAM without medical complications and 15,000 cases of Moderate Acute Malnutrition (MAM) in pregnant and lactating women and children under five years of age.
Mitigation: 3,500 households
Concern’s emergency programme will provide assistance to improve food security and reduce malnutrition to the most vulnerable households in four communes in Tahoua during the lean season between June and September, when household food stocks are their lowest and food prices on the market are on their highest. Concern will build on its experience in 2015, working with the government’s
national social protection programme to align approaches and moving towards linking nongovernmental emergency assistance with the government’s longer-term social protection.
In addition, Concern plans to undertake research in collaboration with University College London on
the relative impact of shorter and longer-term cash transfers on malnutrition to contribute to the body
of evidence on cash transfers and nutrition, and maximizing the impact of Concern’s programmes.
Concern will continue to support the Ministry of Health to prevent and respond to malnutrition
amongst children, pregnant and lactating women through CMAM (Community management of acute
malnutrition) activities, particularly during periods of peak admissions. It works with the government
to ensure the integration of these services within the health system and to strengthen their capacity.
This support consists largely of ensuring that health services have sufficient medicines, personnel,
therapeutic foods and equipment to treat malnutrition, while supporting community level volunteers
to ensure that malnourished children and pregnant/lactating women are screened and referred to
treatment programmes, defaulters and absents are followed-up and important health and nutrition
education is provided. Through the Surge Capacity model, Concern will continue to work with
health centres to ensure timely responses to increases in caseloads through their on-going support and
monitoring. Concern will continue to be an active and influential member of the Nutrition Alliance of
ECHO partners put in place in 2014 to improve the efficiency and efficacy of NGO support to the
integration of quality treatment of acute malnutrition into health services in Niger through the sharing
of lessons learned, harmonized and standardized approachs, and increased advocacy.
At the same time, Concern’s livelihoods mitigation programme will build on the progress made during 2014 in rebuilding household assets, continuing support to households and community groups to
diversify their livelihoods, adopt climate-smart agriculture techniques and improve their food security and their incomes and sustain their natural resources. Importantly, beneficiaries from this programme will be targeted for the expansion of Concern’s resilience programme (see below), providing
an important transition between short-term emergency and development assistance.
Integrated Resilience Programme
Beneficiaries:
Integrated/Multisectoral: 3,000 households;
Health/Nutrition/WASH: 112 villages (approx. 24,000 households) 10 health centers, and 24 health
posts)
The Integrated Resilience Programme (IRP) will be entering its third and final phase in 2015, expanding from two to four communes and providing a total of 3,000 households with integrated, multisecNIG
toral assistance. In addition, 112 villages and their associated health structures in Bambeye and
Tebaram will be targeted with community-based health, nutrition and WASH interventions, as well as
health structure support to improve child, maternal and reproductive health.
Education
Concern’s education programme will continue to work with the Ministry of Education, schools, parents and community members to improve the quality of education and literacy standards in targeted
schools, ensuring appropriate learning environments and improving child protection in schools, particularly for girls. Concern plans to pilot innovative solutions to the problems facing the Nigerien education system, including teacher coaching and the use of video-based technology to improve teaching practices.
Food Security and Livelihoods
During this last phase of IRP, Concern will continue to provide a range of interventions across the agriculture, livestock and livelihoods sectors, to support women and vulnerable households to diversify
their livelihoods and increase their income through a mixture of agriculture and livestock interventions (climate-smart agriculture training, seed and livestock distribution, training of livestock assistants) as well training and asset transfers to support their entry to new value chains such as moringa
production and processing. In addition, natural resource management training and agroforestry activities will help communities to regenerate natural lands and protect soils. DRR activities, such as the
setting up and continued support to early warning systems, will also aim to contribute to household
and community resilience in the face of a changing environment.
Health/Nutrition/WASH
Concern will provide support, in the form of training, equipment, medicine and personnel, to the
government health system at district, health structure and community level so as to reduce mortality,
morbidity, and malnutrition rates and improve the quality of services. Concern will continue the behavior change communication activities of community volunteers, while increasing the number of
community health volonteers able to treat basic childhood illnesses at community level and further
expanding the volunteer’s network to cover additional communities, as it maintains an important
(missing) link between communities, health structures and districts. Concern will increase its focus on
gender, with an expansion of its Ecoles de Maris (husband schools) activities which aim to increase
men’s understanding of and contribution to the health and nutritional status of their families, and
other reproductive health activities.
WASH activities will also retain a community focus – in addition to the rehabilitation of wells, Concern will train and support hygiene committees in targeted villages and will expand its Community
Led Total Sanitation activities to encourage communities to improve sanitation through the construction and use of family latrines.
Monitoring and Evaluation
Programme/ project
Timeframe
Integrated Resilience
2012-2015
Emergency/ Mitigation
2015
All- Updated contextual
analysis
2016-2020
Donors
Irish Aid, UNICEF,
JOAC
ECHO/OFDA, HPP,
WFP, UNICEF
TBC
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Insert timelines for any events planned in 2015
Contextual
Baseline or end- MT
Final evaluanalysis
line study
review
ation
n/a
October
2015
/November 2015
n/a
May/June 2015
(baseline); Oct
2015(endline)
Preparation
end 2015