Niger: AfDB grants US$35m to ensure food security for 1.5 million people in rural areas
Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire (PANA) - The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank (AfDB) on Friday donated US$ 35.4 million to the government of Niger to ensure the food and nutrition security of 1,470,000 people living in rural areas in this Sahelian country of West Africa.
According to the media channel of the bank, the donation, from the Support Facility for Countries in Transition (FAT), is intended for the “mobilization of water resources” and “agricultural entrepreneurship of young people and women” components of the Project to strengthen the resilience of rural communities in food and nutritional insecurity in Niger (PRECIS).
It said on its website that the Bank's financial support is part of the Family Farming Development Programme (ProDAF), co-financed by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), to help consolidate the gains and amplify the results already obtained, within the framework of the Bank's operations in the sector.
A Sahelian country in West Africa, Niger remains extremely vulnerable to climate change, the effects of which it is already suffering from.
AfDB said PRECIS will help strengthen the resilience of rural households to climatic and environmental shocks and ensure their sustainable food and nutrition security. It will also provide support to small producers to overcome production and marketing constraints in the cereal, market gardening, poultry and small livestock sectors.
Ultimately, the PRECIS, which will be implemented over a period of five years, will increase the income of around 210,000 households, representing around 1.5 million people, as well as the construction of 117 structures to mobilize water resources, and the creation and development of 30,040 young rural businesses, of which at least 30% are carried out by women.
The project is expected to create and consolidate 45,060 direct jobs in rural areas, and train at least 33,000 beneficiaries in various themes related to adaptation to climate change, management and promotion of micro-enterprises.
It will provide direct support to 35,000 households in nutritional education, reaching 245,000 people as well as more than 2,000 organizations and groups to strengthen their capacities in management techniques.
PRECIS will support other achievements, notably: the establishment of 660 literacy centres, the construction of nine semi-wholesale markets, 18 operational collection centres, the establishment of 10 Farmers' Houses, and the rehabilitation of 348 kilometres of tracks connecting production basins to collection centres and semi-wholesale markets.
The resilience of the Nigerien populations to the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic is expected to improve at the end of the project.
-0- PANA VAO 31Oct2020
