heks

The people in the West African Sahelian country of Niger face big problems, given their lack of access to clean drinking water and to education, and other privations such as the lack of an efficient health service. Illness and malnutrition are the direct consequences visited upon the people and especially the children. Niger is also regularly afflicted by periods of drought which plunge the rural population into starvation crises.

More than 44 per cent of children below the age of five are underweight and over 85 per cent of the population have to make ends meet on less than two dollars a day. The UNO Human Development Index ranks Niger 167 out of 169 countries. HEKS and its partner organisations support the rural population in Tahoua, one of the poorest regions in Niger. The projects improve and secure the livelihoods of poor farming and livestock breeding families on the one hand and, on the other, provide emergency aid in periods of drought.

Aims, points of focus, initiatives

The HEKS aid strategy for Niger for 2009 to 2012 has been approved. The points of focus of its work are development cooperation and humanitarian aid in the region of Tahoua. Long-term goals are to improve agricultural production and the marketing of produce, to provide access to resources and to promote the sustainable use of these resources. Nomadic livestock breeding families will also be helped to gain access to village infrastructures and to be recognised by the state as an administrative unit. Another aspect of the strategy is to develop mechanisms for the early detection of impending times of famine. The idea is to enable those affected to respond as promptly and efficiently as possible to a starvation crisis.

In a bid to achieve these aims HEKS finances initiatives in the following areas: livestock farming, irrigated market gardening in the dry season, drinking water supply, village feeding centres for young children, operation of grain and animal feed banks, reclamation and preparation of arable farm land and pasture land, anti-erosion systems, and early-warning mechanisms in times of drought. HEKS also allocates funding to measures which strengthen rural grassroots organisations and which impart technical skills so as to be able to guarantee the success and sustainability of the development process.