Niger is a landlocked West African country with a population of 21.5 million people (World Bank 2019a). It gained independence from France in 1960, and after decades of single-party military rule it was established as a multiparty democracy in 1991. Since then it has experienced multiple coups and continuous instability, switching between democratic and military regimes, with the current president having held office since 2011 (Thurston 2017). Niger has also struggled with terrorism and armed conflict, including rebellions by the Tuareg people in 2007–2009 and around 2013 and incursions by Boko Haram fighters from northern Nigeria into the country’s southeast starting in early 2015 (Elischer and Mueller 2018; UNHCR 2019g). The Tillabéri and Tahoua regions in the southwest have also experienced a recent uptick in attacks by militant groups, forcing more than 50,000 Nigeriens to flee their homes (UNHCR 2018).

As of 2014, 44.5 percent of Niger’s population lived in poverty, down from 74.9 percent in 2005. GDP per capita was just $378 in current US dollars as of 2017, the third lowest in the world among all countries with available data after Burundi and Malawi (World Bank 2019a). Niger ranks last of all countries in the Human Development Index at 189th out of 189 countries (UNDP 2018). Seventy-six percent of employment is in agriculture, while 8 percent is in industry and 16 percent is in services. Forty percent of GDP comes from agriculture, 16 percent from industry, and 38 percent from services (World Bank 2019a).

Niger—and its agricultural sector in particular—is highly exposed to risks, including drought, locust outbreaks, livestock diseases, food price spikes, and political instability (World Bank 2013). According to the vulnerability component of the World Risk Index, it is the third most vulnerable country in the world, meaning that Niger is particularly susceptible to and unable to cope with the risks it faces (Heintze et al. 2018). Approximately three-fourths of Niger’s landmass consists of arid land in the Sahara Desert that receives limited rainfall, has low levels of irrigation, and has a population reliant on livestock keeping and limited crop production (World Bank 2013). Increasing temperatures and the risk of rising variability in rainfall due to climate change are putting additional pressure on Niger’s resource base and creating tension over resources among the population (ICRC 2019a).

Agricultural productivity in Niger is low, with crop yields of staples, including millet and sorghum, below regional averages (FEWS NET 2017b). Niger’s agricultural sector is claimed to be constrained in part by limited financing, with most farmers having no access to credit or bank accounts (Cancino 2018).

Niger ranks 101st out of 117 countries according to the 2019 Global Hunger Index, with a 2019 GHI score of 30.2, considered serious, down from 52.1 in 2000, considered extremely alarming. Underlying this improvement are reductions in the values of each of the four indicators used to calculate the GHI scores (Figure 4.2). The prevalence of undernourishment—indicating the percentage of the population with insufficient access to calories—fell between 1999–2001 and 2013–2015. Since 2014–2016, however, it has risen again, driven up by low agricultural production, conflict, population displacement, and increased cereal prices (FAO 2019b; FEWS NET 2016, 2017c). The number of refugees and internally displaced persons in Niger has increased dramatically since 2015 (UNHCR 2017). In Niger’s Diffa region in particular, conflict and population displacement have worsened food insecurity (FAO and WFP 2019).

Niger’s mortality rate for children under age five declined significantly from 22.4 percent in 2000 to 8.5 percent in 2017. An analysis of the reduction in child mortality in Niger between 1998 and 2009 showed that the improvement could be attributed largely to increased access to primary health care services for women and children, mass campaigns focusing on vaccinations and insecticide-treated bed nets, and improved nutrition programming. While the country did indeed experience food insecurity during this period, the government and other organizations were able to provide relief that prevented backsliding on child nutrition (Amouzou et al. 2012).

Niger’s rates of child stunting, an indicator of chronic undernutrition, were 53.5 and 54.8 percent, respectively, in 2000 and 2006. The most recent data, from 2016, show the child stunting rate at 40.6 percent, which is still considered “very high” (de Onis et al. 2019). Niger’s child wasting rate, indicating acute undernutrition, has shown some fluctuation; in 2016 it was 10.1 percent (considered “high” according to de Onis et al. 2019) compared with 16.2 percent in 2000. Child undernutrition rates vary substantially by region. Stunting levels are at or above 50 percent in Zinder and Maradi, and the highest wasting rates are in Agadez and Maradi, both of which are at 12.9 percent (Table 4.1).

Many Nigeriens have poor diets, including low dietary diversity and a high reliance on staple foods (FEWS NET 2017b). Millet and sorghum constitute a large portion of the calories consumed by Nigeriens, particularly among rural people living in poverty (Cheng and Larochelle 2016). A study of pregnant and lactating women in Zinder found that only about one in six women reported meeting a standard measure of minimum dietary diversity (Wessells et al. 2019). Diets of Nigerien infants and young children are woefully inadequate: just 23.3 percent of infants under 6 months of age are exclusively breastfed, and only 5.6 percent of children ages 6–23 months consume a minimum acceptable diet (INS and ICF International 2013).

Exceptionally challenging socioeconomic conditions in Niger create a difficult environment for food and nutrition security. Niger has one of the lowest levels of educational attainment and literacy of any country in the world. Nigeriens average just two years of schooling, and the adult literacy rate is only 31 percent. The situation is even more dire for women than for men (UNDP 2018; World Bank 2019a), which has implications for child nutrition. Parental education at the secondary level and beyond, especially maternal education, is associated with lower levels of child stunting, including in Niger (Alderman and Headey 2017). Niger also has one of the highest population growth rates, at 3.8 percent annually. It has the highest rate of child marriage in the world, with approximately three-fourths of girls marrying before the age of 18 (World Bank 2019a; Shepherd 2018). Households in Niger in which the woman was married at an early age have higher levels of food insecurity in terms of both dietary diversity and subjective self-assessments of food security (Steinhaus and Kes 2018).

Various types of interventions have the potential to improve food security and nutrition in low- and lower-middle-income countries, including nutrition-specific interventions such as supplementation and nutrition education programs, and nutrition-sensitive interventions such as agriculture and cash transfer programs. Research has shown, however, that the effectiveness of a given approach depends on the context in which it is implemented, which can vary from country to country and within country borders. A selection of the impact evaluation literature presents some of the available evidence on what has been effective in Niger.

While ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) was developed to treat child undernutrition, in Niger it has also been shown to be effective as a preventative strategy (Grais 2016). A three-month trial that included the distribution of daily packets of RUTF to children succeeded in reducing wasting and mortality among the participants (Isanaka et al. 2009). Additional trials have found that distribution of ready-to-use supplementary food (RUSF), which has lower levels of energy and micronutrients than RUTF and is intended for consumption along with other complementary foods, can also protect against child wasting and mortality in certain contexts in Niger (Isanaka et al. 2010; Grellety et al. 2012).

Cash transfer programs are used widely in low-income countries. A program in the Zinder region of Niger initiated by the World Food Programme in 2011 provided beneficiaries with either a cash transfer or a food transfer, including grains, legumes, and oil, during the lean season. Those who received the cash transfer were more likely to buy inexpensive staple foods, whereas those who received the food transfer consumed the food that was provided and increased their dietary diversity. These findings suggest that if the goal is to improve diet quality, food transfers with a mix of food items may be preferable to cash, although the results do depend on contextual factors such as proximity of and access to food markets and preferences for food quantity versus food quality. Also, in cases such as this, where food transfers are more costly to distribute than cash transfers, food transfers may reach fewer beneficiaries (Hoddinott, Sandström, and Upton 2018).

An intervention implemented by Forum Santé Niger and Médecins Sans Frontières in the Maradi region of Niger in 2011 was intended to determine whether cash transfers, distribution of supplementary foods, or a combination of these interventions was most effective at preventing moderate and severe acute undernutrition of children during the lean season in Niger. Results showed that the group that received both cash and supplementary foods fared best—even when the group that exclusively received cash received a higher cash allotment to offset the lack of food. This result may have been due to the low availability of nutritious foods in the market. The authors suggest that in high-burden contexts such as Niger, it may be optimal to distribute nutritious foods to all children under two years of age, while also providing cash transfers to the most vulnerable households (Langendorf et al. 2014).

In 2010 Concern Worldwide implemented an unconditional cash transfer program in Niger in response to the 2009–2010 drought and food crisis. The program included three different program designs: (1) provision of cash via envelope; (2) provision of cash via mobile phone as well as provision of a mobile phone; and (3) provision of cash via envelope as well as provision of a mobile phone. The second group bought more types of food items and had higher dietary diversity than the other groups, possibly because receiving the mobile transfer was more flexible and less time consuming for the recipients. However, providing cash via mobile phone does present challenges: beneficiaries have to be instructed on how to use the phone, and a sufficient number of mobile money agents must be available in the program area (Aker et al. 2016).

Agricultural interventions can also improve food security and nutrition. Beginning in the 1980s, Nigerien farmers developed a technique known as farmer-managed natural regeneration (FMNR) to grow and reproduce trees and shrubs that can be used for livestock fodder, fuel, and food. The trees also reduce wind speed, erosion, and evaporation in nearby agricultural fields and improve soil fertility. Over time, FMNR is estimated to have enabled the production of 500,000 additional tons of cereals per year in Niger, boosting Nigeriens’ food security (WRI et al. 2008; Reij, Tappan, and Smale 2009).