"We have sold over half of this year's crop to pay back our debts from buying food to cover our needs," reports Issoufou Harouna. "What is left will feed my family for five months if we don’t buy clothes or need health care."
"After that? Hopefully, we will be able to sell a goat, if she reproduces. Perhaps my son will leave for migrant work in Nigeria. In the end, we will go into debt again. We have no choice."
Such is the predicament for the 70 percent of rural Nigeriens who are poor. "One presumes that families were forced to go into debt because of the 2004-2005 food crisis, but actually many families have been unable to extract themselves from the vicious cycle of indebtedness for three or four years," explains Dr. Amadou Sayo, head of programming for CARE in Niger.
Decapitalization
How do you respond to a child whose cries of hunger fade as her body weakens? "I stopped producing milk due to my own hunger few months ago, but still let her suckle," recalls Mariama Djadi when talking about her baby Rabi who was born at last year’s harvest. "And we ate whatever we could; good leaves and grass as well as ones that made us sick. Whatever would fill our stomachs. And I sold my only sheep. I know that I will suffer more now that I don't have an animal, but we were hungry."
With fewer and fewer household assets such as animals, families are increasingly affected by food shortages and other crises. This is one of the reasons that a 20 percent shortfall in food production in 2004 caused such widespread suffering.
Immediate Relief
To the relief of Issoufou and Mariama and more than 3 million others, the international community funded a large aid effort. CARE alone distributed 20,000 metric tons of food that provided four weeks of food for 1 million people affected by the crisis. CARE is also providing nutritional rehabilitation for 5,000 malnourished children.
Now CARE and other organizations must turn to the more arduous task of helping families break out of the cycle of indebtedness.
Long-term Recovery
CARE is utilizing its experience in Niger to build families' abilities to meet their needs while rebuilding their household assets. Through savings and credit groups, women are able to secure loans to start small businesses or pay for health care without mortgaging future crops. Through environmental protection activities, farmers are able to coax more millet from their fields and herders are able to improve the health of their animals. Nutrition and health education for parents of young children will help families maximize their meager food resources and avoid illnesses like diarrhea that are frequently major causes of death here.
With the continued support of the international community and the combined efforts of the government of Niger, UN agencies and nongovernmental organizations, Niger's working rural poor will have the chance to recover not only from last year's food crisis, but also from the cycle of poverty and indebtedness that plagues them.
