Niger
Niger is the poorest country in the world, according to the 2005 United Nations Human Development Report.
- We're treating and feeding tens of thousands of chidren who might othewise die from starvation.
- We've helped to vaccinate more than 1 million children against the killer common infectious diseases
Although it is the third largest producer of uranium worldwide, nearly half the Nigerien government's budget comes from foreign aid. Out of a population of 14 million, 46% are under 14 years of age. Many of the children and young people do not have a school to go to, enough food to eat and cannot get treatment when they are ill. One out of four children dies before the age of five - more than in any other country in the world. Most children aged between five and 14 do some sort of paid work.
Save the Children in Niger
We began work in Niger during the food crisis of 2005 when we launched an emergency nutrition operation in Zinder and Maradi regions in the south, which continues today. As well as ensuring that the children are better fed in the short term, we're also working to bring about real change in the children's lives. Together with their communities and national government, we're working to remove the risk of hunger in the long term and provide more and better healthcare.
We're feeding hungry children
The effects of the 2005/06 food crisis are still being felt. Many households borrowed money to buy food and are still in debt. Or they had to sell their land and animals without which they are unable to return to producing food for themselves. As a result, many children are still at risk of dying because of lack of food. Save the Children has continued to run the 33 outpatient therapeutic care sites we set up in Zinder and Maradi at the height of the crisis. During the last year, we treated and fed 24,077 children. We've also continued to run 27 supplementary feeding sites, where we fed 25,766 children. We referred 689 children who had developed more serious medical problems to inpatient stablisation centres run by other international non-governmental organisations. We carried out a survey to find out how many children were still malnourished. Although numbers had fallen considerably since the initial crisis, they remain worryingly high.
Niger faces yearly food shortages but in 2004 the combined effect of drought and a locust invasion created an emergency situation where feeding programmes became essential.
Children like Louali are measured and weighed. If their weight for height ratio is less than 70% of normal they are classified as severely malnourished.
Marie mixes the food supplement that is given to malnourished children. At the peak of the crisis extra food is also given to families.
Harisa feeds Plumy’nut to her baby, Saui. Plumpy’nut is a high nutrition therapeutic food given to severely malnourished children.
By the end of 2005 Save the Children had treated over 25,000 severely and moderately malnourished children.
We are calling for long-term funding to tackle the root causes of the predictable and chronic situation in Niger - one of the poorest countries in the world
We're working to improve children's care
Lack of good quality food is the biggest threat to children. Some 40% of children under five are moderately to severely underweight and not growing as they should. For every 1,000 live births, 150 babies die before they reach one year old.
Mothers are often not sufficiently well nourished themselves to produce enough breast milk for their babies. Fewer than 2% of mothers give their babies just breast milk, which would be the best thing for them during the first few months. We've trained 544 voluntary village health workers to be able to identify children who are so malnourished that their lives are at risk. The health workers will then refer these children to the nearest therapeutic care site.
We're helping children get healthcare
Niger's health system does not have enough clinics, medicines or trained staff. Malaria - a preventable disease - accounts for half of all deaths among children under five. The government has approved a plan to provide free healthcare to pregnant women and children under five, but does not have the funds to make this a reality.
Save the Children offers medical care to the children who attend our therapeutic and supplementary feeding sites. We're able to treat them for malaria, diphtheria, tuberculosis, acute respiratory tract infections and diarrhoea.
We've vaccinated 19,876 children against measles. We refer any children admitted to our nutrition programmes who are not vaccinated against the other common diseases to the local health centres. We've covered the health fees of the children involved in our nutrition programmes, either by paying the health centres directly, or else by supplying them with essential medicines, needles and so on. It seems that this may have boosted people's use of the centres generally. A survey of five clinics found that the numbers of children in the area who were vaccinated against rubella had increased from 49% to 83%.
We've also supported district level vaccination campaigns by providing vehicles, drivers and fuel to enable the health workers to travel around their area. In total, they vaccinated more than 1 million children.
Find out more
- Download the Niger country brief (PDF 73KB).
- Téléchargez le sommaire du pays complet en français (PDF 73KB)
- Read about Save the Children's Emergency Nutritionists working in Niger
- Find out about the trip Frances Seth - volunteer for Save the Children for 20 years - took to Niger
