Household Economy Analysis in Southern Niger

Report on a household economy survey of Two livelihood Zones of Tessaoua District, Maradi Region September 2007

Julius Holt & Sonya LeJeune, consultants

[This report is designed to accompany the Livelihood Zone Profiles which have been produced separately. The intention is to provide information on the methodology and to offer expanded comments on the interpretation and implications of the survey results.]

Financé par ECHO :

HEA Tessaoua District, Niger – September 2007

1 INTRODUCTION

Poverty and Malnutrition

Household Economy Analysis (HEA) helps us to understand the structure and dynamics of rural poverty. This should be relevant when SCUK looks for the causes of malnutrition, and especially undernutrition, with the reasonable assumption that poverty is highly implicated. But 'poverty' is a concept that comes with much baggage, including increasingly ill-defined references to 'vulnerability'. Perhaps clarity will be gained if instead we turn the matter around and consider briefly why child malnutrition (in the sense of undernourishment rather than obesity) is so comparatively rare in a rich, urbanised country like the UK. This is indeed an easy one: there is no reason for anyone to be undernourished in the UK, except in some serious illnesses and a very small percentage of social cases. Foods containing basic calories and all essential nutrients are available for an astonishingly low proportion of even the most modest budget, and fresh milk is amongst the cheapest foods of all. The physical environment for the vast majority of children is sanitary and safe, health services are highly advanced and universally available, and as a substitute for the direct care and charity (and associated social coercion) within the extended family or local community found in the old rural society, there is a formal system of inspection, control and provision when physical and social conditions are deemed to threaten the wellbeing of children or the aged1. Sufficient nutrition depends very little on the educational level of parents, and if children of more educated parents are statistically more likely to have a healthier diet than those of less educated parents, the difference is very rarely seen in undernutrition amongst the latter children.

If we now look at rural Niger, we need only reverse the picture of modern UK to see where undernutrition, as well as much other malnutrition, comes from. Whilst some farmers produce substantial surpluses in most years, the majority are always in greater or lesser deficit of the cereals and pulses which form as much as 90% of their diet. They must make up the difference mainly from the market. Purchase of food, including a few vegetables and condiments, takes up a very high proportion of poorer people's expenditure even where they are paid directly in grain for some of their labour; and there is a marked seasonal variation in access2. Substantial milk consumption would be a luxury for the great majority of the agricultural population who must buy it. Even if a poor household is fortunate enough to maintain a cow, they will get very little milk from it for much of the year, since pastures soon fade in the dry season and there is no money to buy fodder. Weaning is a particular shock to infants where there is no animal milk. The physical environment for young children is highly unsafe and unsanitary by UK standards. Health services are rudimentary where they are effectively available at all, and poor vaccination coverage makes the environment all the more unsafe for children3. Community care and charity are essential to the survival not only of 'social cases' (e.g. the few aged people living alone, or households with no able-bodied member) but also to that of the poorest economically active group whom we have called the 'Very Poor'. The redistribution by one means or another of food, cash and even livestock from wealthier to poorer households is a major, enumerated feature of the survey results. But in addition, the openness of rural living, where everybody knows a great deal about everybody else's business, also promotes the mutual support between relatives and neighbours that disappears in modern urban settings where most people are economically independent of their wider family: modern living tends to isolate households physically and to

1 Although it must be said that care of the aged leaves a great deal to be desired. 2 Critics who complain of a 'food first' mentality or an obsession with food security amongst some aid agents might like to consider how very much of poor rural peoples' livelihood effort is concentrated just on getting enough to eat through the year. 3 The field teams noted in the villages several infants/young children who were blind and/or deaf reportedly through measles.

Page 2 of 37 HEA Niger 2007 Report Final Final HEA Tessaoua District, Niger – September 2007 some extent socially.

The only feature in which a plain contrast between the UK and rural Niger is not quite so obvious is the link between the educational level of parents and malnutrition in their children. In the UK there is a definite association between childhood obesity and low educational and social status, and the phenomenon is of increasing concern in the public health domain. In Niger, regarding undernutrition rather than obesity, it is true that at the national level a link has been made between the level of education of mother and malnutrition1, most markedly when the mother has reached secondary education. But turning to the villages of Tessaoua where the literacy rate is very low, and extremely few mothers have reached secondary education2, the results of the recent SCUK village survey (Ref.1) in Tessaoua Département do not encourage us to believe that the educational level of parents has a strong, positive association with the nutritional status of their children. Indeed it is not immediately clear what advantage basic literacy amongst parents might confer to child nutrition in this setting, unless it is lessons to schoolchildren on hygiene or good nutrition which they then apply much later, in parenthood - a far from proven fact. On the other hand the nutritional status of children in this survey is positively associated with the wealth of the household. But even if slightly more people from the wealthier groups have gone to primary school than from the poorer groups, it seems highly likely that the determinant of differences in nutritional status is the quantity and quality of diet, and this does not correlate with basic literacy amongst the parents.

Within the overall sphere of poverty, different analysts choose their particular area to concentrate upon. There is a main division between health and nutrition analysis on the one hand, and economic analysis on the other. Both are evidently relevant to an understanding of malnutrition, but they are rarely directly linked by practitioners: for instance, it is rare to have anthropometric data and wealth breakdown information on the same set of children, as in the above-mentioned survey.

What HEA describes

HEA lies squarely on the economic analysis side, and aims to offers a clear picture of the scope, constraints and internal differentials of rural poverty. It is a form of livelihoods analysis which takes access to sufficient food as a basic reference point. As such it has commonly been used in relation to food security matters. But HEA actually offers a more complete analysis of household economy, because the analytical framework stands on three pillars:

- where and how households obtain their food; - the sources and amounts of household cash income; - the proportions of household expenditure on different items.

This wider information is therefore relevant to issues beyond food security; indeed, the necessity of cash earnings nowadays for most villagers in most places simply to get access to sufficient food means that there can be little difference between food security analysis and overall livelihoods security analysis.

1 Stunting prevalence amongst young children: 14.1% when the mother has reached at least secondary education; 40.9 % when the mothers have attended primary education and 45.8% when mothers have no education at all (source: EDSN – MICS 2006) 2 There are also few secondary-level educated men in the villages, since the point of secondary education (at least in parents' eyes) is to get young adults off the land, out of the village and into business or employment in the town. Poorer rural parents today make financial sacrifices to get their children educated but are largely unable to support their children in secondary school unless the school is within walking distance of the home.

Page 3 of 37 HEA Niger 2007 Report Final Final HEA Tessaoua District, Niger – September 2007

HEA provides a good, general resource for SCUK's advocacy role for poor children, in that it describes the household economy which is the basis of children's survival and the major determinant of their futures. But much of the interest of the story offered by an HEA survey lies in the detail of the many different things poorer people must do to survive. The nearer people are to the threshold between just making ends meet or failing to do so, the more complicated the picture gets. And it is these marginal but crucial activities which must be of particular interest to those in SCUK devising interventions, because no NGO is in a position to change the fundamental structure of poverty.

The current survey was not only of the relatively poor households. Much effort has gone into understanding the economy of the wealthier households of villages too, those identified as of 'middle' and ‘better off’ economic status, together comprising a little under half of the population (and some 35% of households, since these usually have more members than poorer households). For one thing, all village children share the environmental dangers and lack of developed services, including for health and education, and the children even of wealthier rural households have poorer material lives than those of wealthier urban households in Niger, let alone the vast majority of children in rich countries. But the main point is that it in the rural milieu is impossible to understand the position of poorer households without understanding how wealthier households operate, because there is an important economic and social relationship between them. To put the matter in a nutshell, the poorer you are, the more you depend on employment and patronage by the rich; whilst the richer you are, the more you depend economically on the labour of the poor, and the more your social status depends on the scope of your patronage of poorer kin and neighbours, including often substantial charitable support.

The description of these differences in wealth is essential to any poverty analysis upon which development initiatives might be based. But it also has a direct bearing on the short term, seasonal concerns of Early Warning systems, where the need is to judge how a shock such as harvest failure is going to affect a given population: what will be the difference in response and resilience between poorer and wealthier people? How many are in either group, and therefore how many people may need assistance? In addition, HEA offers a window onto the medium- or even longer-term effects of a shock. It would be foolish to claim that any one survey or any one approach can tackle all poverty questions, whether short, medium or long term; but HEA, as a ‘systems’ view of how different types of household operate their economy, does offer a solid platform for considering some answers.

The two boxes below illustrate the stark differences in livelihoods between Very Poor and the Better Off households. For the purposes of comparison, the two examples have been taken from the same village (Akoumba) in the North Settled Livelihood Zone.

Very Poor Households in Akoumba , North Settled Livelihood Zone Despite reasonable harvest in the reference year, these households had to work hard to make ends meet with their limited productive assets, whilst having to fund their social obligations too. A typical Very Poor household of 7 people cultivated 1 ½ hectares during 2006-07 with millet, sorghum and cow peas. Although unable to produce enough to cover their energy needs, some harvest had to be sold to meet non-food needs including reimbursing loans. This was sold at the lowest possible price as they could not afford to wait. Religious obligation meant that 10% of their harvest had to be given away as zakat while social obligation meant that a small proportion of their harvest was contributed to festivities within the community. As a result they were able to cover only 40% of their annual calorie needs from their own production. This type of household relied on the market and on payment in kind (receiving payment for labour in the form of grain) to cover their remaining energy needs. They also received small gifts of food which however made only a minor contribution to overall caloric needs. But such households have other essential expenses such as soap, salt, water and lighting fuel, although they purchase these items in minimal quantities. To meet their food and other expenses they relied principally on their labour capacity, hired out both locally and in migrant work. Local work includes agricultural labour on the fields of their wealthier neighbours. They also earned money making bricks or collecting and selling fodder grasses. An able bodiedPage male4 of 37 from each householdHEA spent Niger 3 months 2007 Repo look rting Final for Final work in Nigeria – the benefit being felt in terms of the grain or money he brought home plus having one less mouth to feed during to his absence. HEA Tessaoua District, Niger – September 2007

Better Off Households in Akoumba, North Settled Livelihood Zone This type of household demonstrates what success means in the northern sahel. Typically, a household of 14 people (including 2 wives) employed people to cultivate 5 hectares of land for them, from which they harvested enough to cover far more than their annual caloric needs if they had chosen to use it in this way. However, some of their crop production was sold (the groundnuts and around half of the cowpeas) and some was used to feed labourers, contribute to community occasions, to pay zakat and for other charitable purposes - still leaving enough to cover over three quarters of the households’ calorie needs. The remaining requirement came from stocks held over from last year, and from purchase, including preferred imported items such as pasta and rice. This type of household also owns cattle – they keep around 7 at their homestead and may have an ox being looked after by a poorer relative; they possess over 20 sheep and goats (a couple of which might be cared for by poorer households under the kiyo system) with 15 to 20 poultry. These animals provide them with food (milk, meat, eggs) and income (through sale of livestock or their products). They also keep four donkeys mainly for drawing water. During the year the sale of their livestock and products was the most important source of income, contributing around two thirds of their total annual cash earnings. The remaining third of their income came from renting out their ox-and-cart for transport, trading in livestock and cereal or from other producers, and for women, selling home-made snacks on market days. Just under a quarter of their income was reinvested in their own livestock and crop production, including veterinary fees, reconstituting the herd, payment of labourers and buying seeds. Although such households could well afford to educate their children, there is currently no school in Akoumba.

Good, bad and ugly years

The picture offered in this survey is of the situation in a specific, reference year. This was the 'consumption year' just ending at the time of the survey, namely from the beginning of consumption of the harvest in late September 2006 to the moment before the harvest began in mid to late September 2007 (the harvest usually gets into full swing only in October). The 2006 harvest was relatively good in the district as a whole, even if there were smaller or larger pockets of poor production. However, no year is an island unto itself. Livelihood conditions in 2006-07 were affected by conditions in the previous years and most notably by the lingering impoverishment resulting from the crisis of 2005 which brought SCUK to Niger in the first place.

The normal rhythm of sahelian rural economy from year to year, as described clearly by villagers, is of poor rains and better rains, and by implication poor livelihood years and better livelihood years. If rural people are still there, and indeed increasing in number at a relatively high rate, then it must be that the frequency of good years allows sufficient recovery from the bad years and some building up of reserves against them. If we take sets of, say, ten years together, the economy can remain in some kind of equilibrium even if it does not show growth. Some attempt has been made in the survey to place 2006-07 in this dynamic.

The sahel does not quite present a picture of regular boom and bust (which is perhaps more a tendency in the economy of pastoralists), and so when there is a real bust it comes as a shock. The biggest shock in the memory of middle-aged villagers was the drought of 1984, the same drought that caused the now-iconic famine in Ethiopia, apparently exceeding the drought of 1973 in Niger as in Ethiopia. Villagers say that nothing was quite the same after that: crop production has never recovered to former levels or dependability, nor has livestock ownership, nor even has land-ownership, since so many people were pauperised to the extent of selling their land, or mortgaging it never to be able to reclaim it.

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It is possible to interpret such statements differently, without in the least diminishing the gravity of that drought. Severe drought can accelerate dramatically, but for a short period, long-standing shifts. People who have suffered a great shock naturally come to see it as the instigator or the threshold event of a harmful trend, rather than a temporary accelerator. In this case, the drought seems to be taken as the instigator of trends which have more to do with the increase in the rural population. The population of Niger has more or less doubled in the 23 years since 1984, even taking account of up to 3 million permanent migrants to Nigeria and elsewhere; and the great majority of the new people live in rural areas. Both before and after 1984, there has necessarily been a trend of increasing numbers of people trying to make a living directly from the same land resource. It is arguable that arable land has expanded in view of the increasing settlement of cultivators on former pastures near the northern margins of viable crop cultivation: the very people whose livelihoods are described in the Tessaoua North Settled Livelihood Zone in the present survey, which is part of a general zone at similar latitudes across the country.1 This trend of settlement is of quite long standing, going back well over a century as reported by villagers in Tessaoua; but it has been piecemeal, and may have slowed down or even ceased in recent years. (The 350mm isohyet across the country, which roughly delineates the minimum threshold for successful cereal cultivation, has moved south over recent decades). At all events, the agro-pastoral areas cannot have accommodated anything like the increase in the national rural population during the recent generation. The major phenomenon has undoubtedly been of denser populations from local, natural increase in every inhabited zone.

In poor agricultural societies it seems that land shortage is not shared on an equal basis so that farmers all have equally less land from decade to decade. On the contrary, and even where there is rigorous government intervention as in former Communist Ethiopia, what seems to happen is that there is a process of accumulation of the land, or at least of use of the land, by the wealthier. It is unlikely that they actually increase their land per capita above earlier levels, indeed they are bound to suffer some decrease over time. But they do get their hands on an increasing proportion of the available land by renting land from the poor, or accepting it in mortgage against credit; or more rarely buying it outright. The last two mechanisms at least are in evidence in Tessaoua District today, especially mortgaging.

Annual Rainfall and Numbers of Rainfall Days in Tessaoua Department Reporting Stations 900 Tessaoua Agric 800 Tessaoua CPR 700 600 Dodori 500 Gabaouri MILIMETRES 400 Garare 300 200 Koona 100 Maijirgui 0 Ourafane 2006 2004 2002 2000 1998 1996 1994 1992 1990 Moyenne annuelle YEARS

People say that drought events have increased in frequency, or that average annual rainfall volume has decreased over the years, but the recent local evidence for this seems

1 See Livelihood Zoning and Profiling of NIGER by FEWS NET: ‘Agro-Pastoral Livelihood Zone’. www.fews.net

Page 6 of 37 HEA Niger 2007 Report Final Final HEA Tessaoua District, Niger – September 2007 equivocal. For Tessaoua district, even though the 2004 rains were the worst in more than 10 years up to 2006, the chart above shows an overall rising trend in annual precipitation between the 1990s and the current decade, which continued into 2007 with generally very favourable rains.1 People may instead be responding to the increasing effect of 'bad' years, since, as mentioned, increasing numbers of households require the same local land resource to give them food and to feed their livestock, and so most live on an ever-tighter margin of survival. In fact, farmers do also say quite clearly that population increase renders them short of land, and that the expansion of cultivation has limited the grazing commons. "It is so many years since we used to have different fields devoted to different crops. Now we grow them all in association on one field. And fallowing is also a thing of the past". This statement from a farmer in the South-Central Zone would not yet be precisely echoed in the north. There, fallowing of some two hectares in ten by wealthier people with such holdings was reported in several villages. On the other hand, intercropping of cowpeas and groundnuts with cereals is ubiquitous, and serves an important fertilising purpose where, as is now the majority case everywhere, the same fields are cultivated year after year.

Vulnerability

Vulnerable: capable of being wounded, liable to injury. Open to successful attack. Chambers Dictionary

We should finally consider the concept of 'vulnerability'. HEA was originally developed within SCUK in the mid-1990s in response to the need to improve early warning and the geographical targeting of emergency aid. HEA has moved on from there but still offers a strong, livelihoods-based approach to judging which people are vulnerable in what degree to shocks - especially to the long-onset event of drought. It would perhaps have been natural to label the groups of households differentiated at village level by reference to vulnerability (as other NGOs have done in Niger), but HEA has always in fact labelled them according to wealth. That is because they are indeed defined by wealth characteristics; 'vulnerability' may offer a particular interpretation of the position of these groups in relation to shocks, but they remain wealth groups. For SCUK and other agencies there could also be a confusion between groups defined by vulnerability to shocks, and 'vulnerable groups' in the form of children or the aged or other target groups. Again, insofar as vulnerability to shocks has an implied reference to disasters, this does not fit comfortably with the main intention behind the present HEA survey, which was to contribute to the establishment of SCUK's post- emergency, longer term Hunger Reduction Strategy in Niger.2

Nevertheless, the vulnerability concept has been fundamental to livelihoods analysis in Niger, as elsewhere. CARE-International, something of a doyen of livelihood assessments in the 1990s, undertook a major agro-ecological zone-based livelihoods study in Maradi Region amongst others 10 years before the present survey (Ref. 2)3. The sample populations in each zone were split up into three groups by 'Level of Vulnerability': A or 1 – Moderately Vulnerable; B or 2 - Vulnerable; C or 3 - Very Vulnerable. This means that all households are considered in some degree ‘vulnerable’, and this division has been common in other livelihoods-based surveys since.

1 It is true that annual rainfall volume alone is only a very crude predictor of success for production: the distribution of the rainfall over the season is equally critical. At the time of writing there was concern in Tessaoua at the lack of showers in September. 2 However, any strategy must take account of the frequent 'bad years' of production in the sahel, even though acute drought occurs perhaps only once in a decade. 3 The Maradi and Zinder studies were supported technically by the University of Arizona. The studies in other regions were done in association with other NGOs in the USAID-funded food security network.

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The main theme of the study was food insecurity, and amongst the stated aims were (translated from the French):

‘A better knowledge of the zone of intervention from both the nutritional and food insecurity ((literally ‘food vulnerability’)) points of view, as well as in terms of socio- economic conditions and the survival strategies of the populations.’

‘To determine the impact of local economic resources and adaptation mechanisms on household vulnerability and livelihoods.’

This seems to mean that 'vulnerability' is at least associated with people's ability to feed themselves adequately. A further statement in a section on Definitions makes things a bit clearer (re-translated from the French):

‘Vulnerability to food insecurity is a global ((composite?)) measure for a given population of their risk of exposure to different types of shock (e.g. drought) or other disaster events (warfare, market failure) on the one hand, and on the other their capacity to resist these events (Borton and Shoham 1991).’1

'Vulnerability to food insecurity' seems a confused or tautological phrase, so often used by agencies. People are vulnerable to drought or other likely shocks. That is why they are food insecure. However, the important thing is that the statement does identify what people are supposed to be vulnerable to - namely shocks - rather than leave the concept hanging and vague, as simply ‘vulnerability’. Finally,

‘According to Chambers and Conway (1992), well-being is sustainable when “it can resist and recover from stresses and shocks, maintain its capabilities and assets, and provide opportunities for well-being for the next generation…” (quoted by Drinkwater 1992).’

The reference here to the concept of 'sustainable well-being' goes along with the definition of vulnerability already offered, since here it includes first and perhaps foremost the capacity to withstand shocks, i.e. being in a state food or livelihood security.

But the measurement of ‘vulnerability’ finally offered in the Maradi survey report uses a number of weighted 'indicators' including ‘water’ (4 points), ‘health’ (10 points), ‘proximity of Nigeria’ (1.5 points)… Given that the data in the report is presented subject by subject separately, in tabular form, this is a disappointingly 'black box' approach, without a proper explanation or analytical model.2

At all events, it does seem safe to say that the poorer you are, the more vulnerable you are to shocks. The problem of differentiating poverty analysis and vulnerability analysis is

1 This reflects the commonly accepted definition of vulnerability to shocks, as given, for instance in analyses by the Ethiopia Disaster Preparedness and Prevention Agency’s Livelihoods Integration Unit : ‘Mathematically, the relationship between risk (R), vulnerability (V) and hazard (H) can be summarised as: R = f (H,V) Where: Risk = likelihood of a negative outcome (e.g. food deficit); Hazard = likelihood of exposure to a hazard (e.g. drought); Vulnerability = likelihood that people will not be able to cope with a defined hazard. 2 The Maradi study is a remarkable compendium of information and was by far the richest secondary source available for the present survey. But from the analytical point of view there are major frustrations, in that the data are presented in various combinations by gender, class, agro-ecological zone and aggregation at the Regional level. It is not possible to elicit a picture of the operations of typical households by wealth (or 'vulnerability') class that adds up to a whole (whether in a given zone or in a composite geography).

Page 8 of 37 HEA Niger 2007 Report Final Final HEA Tessaoua District, Niger – September 2007 brought up directly in a recent, major report on the Sahel jointly commissioned by SCUK and other NGOs: 'Beyond Any Drought' (Ref. 3):

'Overall it is clear that poverty rather than vulnerability is the most commonly used focus among Sahel-based agencies. Some agencies say that they do not see the need for a definition of vulnerability, perhaps reflecting the lack of differentiation between poverty and vulnerability.'

But the authors stick to their vulnerability guns, and indeed ply a concept that brings a further difficulty: 'chronic' vulnerability, as opposed to chronic poverty. The commonly accepted definition of vulnerability to shocks is offered, but then we are told that 'Vulnerability is chronic when it is persistent and longlasting'. That is more or less a dictionary definition of 'chronic', but it begs the question of what, then, is non-persistent, short term vulnerability? Who suddenly becomes vulnerable to a shock? Only perhaps a better-off person faced with an overwhelming catastrophe: a herder, say, who loses every one of his hundred cattle. Such things have happened in sahelian drought. But this is still 'chronic' vulnerability: the person was always vulnerable to that level of shock, it is just that it doesn't happen anything like as frequently as lesser shocks to which poorer people are vulnerable. The conclusion must be that all vulnerability in the sense given is chronic, so that the label is redundant. After losses due to a shock, impoverished people will be more vulnerable to subsequent shocks than before, until they build up again those buffering resources they had before. Acutely or chronically vulnerable? There seems no way or need to differentiate; perhaps the important point may be that more people are becoming vulnerable to lesser shocks.

A subsequent statement is made that 'vulnerability becomes evident only when disasters or shocks occur'. But if we change this to 'the depth of people's poverty becomes evident only when disasters or shocks occur', then this is surely a clearer statement of the agenda driving this report – which goes on to give an interesting synthesis of literature and opinion, especially on the challenge to pastoralism of the continuing encroachment of agriculture on traditional pastures - in the kind of area which is represented by the current Profile on Tessaoua’s North Settled Livelihood Zone.

The crisis in Niger in 2005 brought forth an acute episode of the chronic tension in the aid community between investment in relief and investment in development. The latter emphasis was perhaps most eloquently put by Eilerts (Ref. 4) in his 2006 polemic on Niger: 'Niger 2005: not a famine but something much worse'. The message here, as from several other commentators, was that whether or not the events of 2005 could really be considered to amount to a famine1, what had been uncovered by the new attention on Niger was worse even than that: chronic poverty and vulnerability to market factors, as well as chronic un- servicing of rural populations, at a quite shocking extreme.

‘Famine arrives, devastates the community, is (poorly) resolved and goes away. But Niger’s deadly famine-like crisis is driven by decades of chronic, extreme poverty that has undermined the ability of individual households in the community to participate effectively in the economy that surrounds them. It is permanent, and insidiously attacks individual infants and children in a large and scattered number of households, all the time. Children are acutely malnourished and die in numbers that are far beyond emergency levels each year, irrespective of good or bad harvests, drought or

1 The argument turned on how limited or localised was the food production deficit, and whether the very high malnutrition figures were not really a discovery of rates that were actually chronic from year to year. For the record, villagers in Tessoua call 2005 'the year of malnutrition'; and they told this author in 2005 (Ref. 6) that production was indeed badly down, but it was the unprecedented high market prices for grain that had taken them beyond the threshold of resistance, so that the poor sold off every last one of their livestock, and even sometimes a part of their land.

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good rains or food prices. This is not a famine, nor a chronic nutritional crisis. It is something much worse.’

The message is of a ‘chronic crisis’, and thus a need for, so to speak, emergency long-term development investment. We may feel that this too easily dismisses the need in 2005 for emergency action – and USAID was arguably part of some dithering in this matter. At all events, SCUK as an agency which began in Niger in the 2005 crisis with an emergency programme, but which now plans a longer-term, development investment, is alive to the difference between acute and chronic situations. It is also aware of the needs and uses of information in both spheres. It is well versed in the application of HEA to early warning and emergency assessment1, and therefore vulnerability analysis in this sense. But SCUK is also increasingly taking on the challenge of using HEA surveys to inform development strategies. The data from the present survey is evidently relevant to early warning matters, but is more particularly intended to attach to the longer term quest to tackle the causes of malnutrition. This report is therefore perhaps more about poverty than about ‘vulnerability’.

1 SCUK has given technical support to a number of national famine early warning systems where HEA is now the central methodology (Ethiopia, Malawi, Lesotho) and to other systems where HEA is a central component, as in the South Sudan Livelihoods Analysis Forum and the Somalia Food Security Analysis Unit (FSAU).

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2 METHODOLOGY

This HEA baseline survey was combined with training of staff from SCUK, and two colleagues from the Oxfam Regional Office in Dakar and NOVIB Niger. The team had a 5- day introduction to the theory and basic tools and techniques of HEA, including a visit to two villages in Tessaoua District so that they could develop their interviewing techniques and pre- test the questionnaires. Field work was conducted over 13 very intensive days, together with two intermediate analysis days; from 13th to 26th September 2007 (Members of the team are listed in Annexe 5).

The livelihood zones

When dealing with a whole country or a Region within it, HEA begins by defining livelihood zones which make up the territory. In the present case, the area in question was a single district (Département) of a region in which SCUK had been working for two years. The aim was to characterise two general areas in the centre and north of the District already known by the team, on the basis that together they cover the majority of the catchment area for the SCUK health and nutrition programme but that they are economically different and so offer different livelihood ‘stories’. These areas are within the ‘Centre’ and ‘North’ agro-ecological zones defined by the local government Agricultural Service. And these in turn are part of two wider sahelian zones of the country, the first containing the majority of the rainfed agriculture, the second a more sparsely populated ‘agro-pastoral’ zone in which settled agriculture and livestock under extensive grazing coincide. (In Tessaoua a third, lusher ‘South’ zone is also defined by the Agricultural Service, occupying only the southern tip of the District.)

North Settled

Zone

The two ‘livelihood zones’ of the survey were labelled ‘South-Central’ and ‘North Settled’, and they typify the Centre and North agricultural zones whilst excluding the intermediate area between centre and far south on the one hand, and on the South-Central other the northernmost fringe of agriculture in small patches beyond which nomadic Zone pastoralism occupies the far north of the District.

The two livelihood zones selected in Tessaoua District

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The selection of villages

Once the livelihood zones have been identified, an HEA baseline then proceeds to fieldwork in sample villages. These are selected by purposive sampling1. The team identified villages of various sizes which they considered to be representative of the livelihood zone as a whole, with key informant help as necessary. A mix of large and small villages was selected, avoiding villages which had unusual features, for instance a major groundwater resource or an active investment project from an agency (there being relatively little agency involvement in this area). Eight representative villages were initially selected from within each zone, as is the usual number in HEA. The villages were primarily or exclusively of Hausa people, who are in the great majority in the district. The survey thus did not deal with the minority, resident Fulani (Peulh), who have a substantially different economy due to their primary concentration on livestock husbandry, even though they also practice agriculture. Even though there are of course wealth differences within their communities, as a group they are seen locally as markedly more wealthy than the Hausa. They are not currently a target of SCUK except in the sense that some of their children might visit feeding centres.

For the field inquiries a reference year for reporting is chosen, covering the harvest and consumption cycle up to the beginning of the next harvest. What is usually sought is the most recent year which is ‘normal’, but such are the ordinary inter-annul variations in semi-arid areas like the sahel that ‘normal’ has to be given a generous interpretation, and the stipulation is that the reference year should not be one of crisis on the one hand, such as 2005, nor on the other of super-abundance. It is usually hoped that the most recent full year will be appropriate, since that is obviously what villagers can remember most precisely. In the case of the present survey, the year just ending with the beginning of the 2007 harvest was by all reports a generally good year in both south and north, but not one of super-abundance. This was the year chosen. There are always pockets of differing rainfall and crop performance in the sahel even within limited areas such as the zones in question, and it was expected that of the eight villages in each zone, some would have had a worse harvest in 2006 than others. The composite picture would represent this local mix. This duly turned out to be the case for the South-Central Zone.

But as the fieldwork progressed in the North Settled Zone, a different pattern emerged. On either side of a roughly central line, villages on the west had had a good-to-very good harvest in 2006, whilst in the east villages had had a poor-to-very poor harvest. In the variable Sahel this was not remarkable enough to have caused general comment. But it did pose a problem: mixing together two such different performances would give a theoretical mean but a rather artificial picture. The real picture was a double one. The question arose as to whether the problem could be made into an opportunity to tell two different stories for the same area: good harvest and bad harvest. These stories were typical, and did not at all equate to the extremes of abundance and drought. The decision was taken to go for the latter option, and time was found to include a further two villages, so that the final sample was of five villages with a good harvest and five with a poor harvest. The analysis was separated accordingly, and the double picture is presented in the North Settled Zone Profile.

The village level fieldwork

There were several steps to the procedure at village level. First, interviews were held with key informants. These are people who can provide an overview of the village and included the chief, elders and other community leaders. These discussions centred on typical units of measurement for land and crops, seasonality, commodity prices and risks to livelihoods in the village for the reference year (2006-2007). The box below illustrates in part the

1 i.e. not probability samples of a predetermined size.

Page 12 of 37 HEA Niger 2007 Report Final Final HEA Tessaoua District, Niger – September 2007 complexity of the process and the necessary skills therefore of the field team to be able to probe and cross check available information with other references to arrive at a logical understanding. They also included the second main plank of the HEA process after zoning, which is to establish the local criteria for wealth within the community using locally defined wealth groups and estimate the proportion of households in each. A division into four wealth groups was sought, particularly to avoid the large grouping of 60-70% or even more ‘poorest’ or ‘very vulnerable’ that are seen in surveys limited to three wealth groups, but rather to be able differentiate between ‘Poor and Very Poor’, for which there are Hausa terms, as there are for ‘Middle’ and ‘Better off’.

Measuring land It was a challenge for the teams to estimate land areas cultivated by households in the north of Tessaoua, since villagers explained that they do not need or have precise measures for land. While in the south of Tessaoua informants were often able to explain field measurement in terms of the number of steps or arm extensions in each direction (and an NGO had introduced the concept of an ‘acre’ to some), in the northern villages this was not always the case. Instead, people were able to state the quantity of seeds they usually sow, and with Agricultural Service information on seeding rates per hectare for different crops the teams worked backwards from that. In one village in the North Settled Livelihood Zone, elders said that they would actually like someone to help them to measure their fields so that they could know how much chemical fertiliser to use. “It is easy to know how much manure to use: you make a pile and spread it out in all directions like this…. but the fertiliser comes with a dose instruction and we don’t know how to work that out because we don’t know how the measure of our fields”

A proportional piling exercise was carried out to estimate the relative proportion of households within each wealth group in the community. Then using the group characteristics as described to the team, community leaders were asked to identify people from representative households from each of the four wealth groups, to form four focus groups of six people, three men and three women1. Four focus group interviews were then conducted within each village - one per wealth group.

These interviews formed the third and final stage of data gathering: collecting information on typical food and cash budgets for households within each wealth group. These ‘wealth group interviews’ served also to confirm or clarify the characteristics of wealth as discussed with the village leaders, itemising the main productive assets (land and livestock and equipment) owned.

These interviews generally lasted 2-3 hours, during which time the interviewer explores, in a systematic manner, all the sources of food and cash income, inserting the answers in a questionnaire. At the start, interviewees are asked to describe the typical household for their wealth group in terms of family members, land and livestock holdings and how these are used. It is a particular feature of HEA fieldwork that during the course of meeting the interviewer seeks to see that the information hangs together and ‘adds up’, making a series of quick calculations. This is a major part of the training and requires probing ‘beyond the obvious’, for example understanding, as in the box below, the household dynamics of cultivation and storage of crops. The reference points are the basic food requirements of the typical household of an agreed number over the year, the sufficiency of income to cover reported food purchases and other identified household costs, and matching patterns of expenditure. Thus food sources are quantified and compared with the household’s annual calorie requirement (2100 kcals pppd2) while income is compared with expenditure.

1 There was some initial concern that women would not speak freely in front of men, but the teams found women generally needed little encouragement to participate fully, and this was accepted by the men. 2 Per person per day

Page 13 of 37 HEA Niger 2007 Report Final Final HEA Tessaoua District, Niger – September 2007

Questions are phrased so as to obtain information about typical households within that particular wealth group, rather than about individual circumstances. And the information is collected for the reference year.

The household grain stores In these Hausa villages in Tessaoua, both men and women own and cultivate land; generally men have the main fields, and their wives have smaller plots on which they cultivate both cereals and cash crops: groundnuts, sorrel, sesame, okra, tomatoes. The combined land area cultivated by the husband and his wife (or wives) is taken here as the total land for the household. Key informants from poor and very poor households explained that while men and women might cultivate the same cereals, the women generally had poorer yields because they did not have enough time to concentrate on agriculture. It was explained that in many compounds, the harvests are stored separately; the man’s granary is the one used to feed the family whilst the woman’s granary is used for festival and baptisms. Only when the man’s grain store is empty does the woman’s grain store provide cereal for general household consumption. Women own the income from their cash crops, using it for instance to buy clothes and school items for their children.

In all, thirty-two wealth group interviews were conducted in eight villages in the South-Central Zone and forty wealth group interviews were conducted in ten villages in the North Settled Livelihood Zone. A list of the villages is provided in the Annex.

Data entry and analysis

The data collected were entered into a pre-designed HEA baseline data storage spreadsheet. This took 5 person-days per zone to enter, including checking the coherence of the information and following up where necessary. Together as a team, the results were then analysed for each wealth group to obtain the typical household budget for each wealth group. This analysis did not focus on the numbers alone; triangulation between wealth groups and zones, cross checking the interviews and comparing secondary sources helped to develop a consistent and logical picture.

Page 14 of 37 HEA Niger 2007 Report Final Final HEA Tessaoua District, Niger – September 2007

3 DISCUSSION OF RESULTS

Skewing and Accumulation of wealth

The data from the survey show a striking degree of disparity in rural wealth, as illustrated in the following graph on the sources and amounts of household cash income the South- Central Livelihood Zone (and discussed in the relevant Profile):

1100000

1000000

900000 Migration 800000 Trade 700000 Transport 600000 Self-employment 500000 Employment 400000 Livestock sales 300000 L/stock prod. sales 200000 Crop sales 100000

0 V.Poor Poor Middle Better-off

There are nearly always major differences in income in rural communities, particularly accentuated in major cash-cropping areas and amongst pastoralist groups. But a seven-to- tenfold difference in income between about a third of households and the rest is unusual. It should be noted that this does not reflect exactly wealth per capita, given the difference in the number of people between poorest (around 7 people) and better off households (around 16 people). But such wealth differences at a household level do highly affect both the economic security of the members and matters of productive investment, social status and educational opportunity. The North Settled Livelihood Zone shows almost equal income disparities. The following tables give a view of the division of assets in both zones:

Proportion of overall community assets in land and livestock owned by the total of households (HH) in different wealth groups

South-Central Livelihood Zone Wealth % total % total % Land % Land % Cattle % Shoats Group HH pop. owned cult. Owned Loaned Owned kiyo Very Poor 36% 29% 8% 11% - - - 3% Poor 28% 22% 19% 16% - 5% 8% 4% Middle 21% 24% 34% 32% 28% - 33% - Better Off 15% 25% 38% 40% 66% - 53% -

North Settled Livelihood Zone Wealth % total % total % Land % Land % Cattle % Shoats Group HH pop. owned cult. Owned Loaned Owned kiyo Very Poor 42% 34% 19% 20% - - 4% 5% Poor 25% 21% 19% 19% - - 10% 2% Middle 19% 22% 26% 26% 33% - 30% - Better Off 14% 23% 36% 35% 67% - 49% - Notes: ‘Shoats’ means sheep and/or goats. The figures do not always add up to exactly 100% due to rounding of contributing data.

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The patterns in each zone are sufficiently similar to be taken together. Better Off and Middle households are bigger than the Poor and Very Poor households, which results in the difference between % households and % population for each wealth group. Looking at the divide between these two sets of wealth groups, the headlines are that the wealthier 33-36% of households (45-49% of the population) own and cultivate 62-72% of the land. The discrepancies within wealth groups between land ownership and land cultivated arise because poorer people may be loaned land by wealthier people, in the north especially land which is newly cultivated or has lain fallow, so that clearing requires a good deal of extra labour. The advantage to the owner is that he can take back and use the cleared land in the next season, and maybe offer another new or fallow plot for loan. In the south, where Better Off people are cultivating more land than they own, this is due to their retaining land which has been mortgaged to them by poorer people urgently needing money (and possibly already deeply indebted to the new retainer of the land). There appears to be no time limit on this arrangement, but it can be a vehicle for the eventual outright purchase of the land by the retainer. Land tends to change hands more frequently in crisis years such as 2005. On the other hand, there is little or no share cropping in this area: people work on other people’s land for a direct wage in cash or kind.

Ownership of livestock is still more skewed than land ownership. They wealthier set actually own virtually 100% of cattle (some poorer individuals untypically own one or two head), but in the south there is some element of redistribution of cattle to Poor households through loans usually of bulls/oxen, whereby the borrower keeps the animal and feeds it up for eventual sale after up to three years, and in return is able to use the animal for labour and usually receives a part of the eventual price (commonly some 25% or a fixed sum of 20,000 CFA in the reference year). The kiyo system for smallstock is similar, but here the keeper is able to use the milk and usually to keep for himself one in three of the young – the only way that Very Poor households can get to own sheep or goats, since they can rarely afford to buy them. This affects Very Poor in the north, who have their hand in one way or another on three times as many smallstock as their fellows in the south. Overall, if we include the actual ownership of kiyo animals, the Better Off and Middle own 86-93% of smallstock.

We are not in a position to know the precise settlement and expansion history of these populations over more than a century, and the way in which land ownership and land use may have changed. There is no reason to believe that at some early stage there was equitable distribution even amongst a much smaller population: today in the north there is still more land available than in the crowded south, but there is actually a somewhat greater proportion of poor people in the communities. Nevertheless it seems reasonable to conclude that there is a process of increased accumulation of assets and skewing of incomes, with some difference south and north. The main element must be the increasing population pressure on land, especially in the south, and the tendency for land to be forfeited to the wealthier when poorer people suffer particular setbacks due to very localized climatic shocks or losses of livestock through disease, or to family problems e.g. illness of breadwinners. This is a piecemeal process which becomes more visible in crises (echoing the comment noted above in the Beyond Any Drought report). But in the north too, although cultivated hectarages are greater amongst all wealth groups, there are already the signs of land pressure due not to continued settlement from the south but to natural increase of the residents, which requires increased expansion of cultivation via the establishment of new villages where wells can be successfully dug. But the ‘bush’ which is cleared is in fact grazing land, and there are increasing tensions with the resident or visiting Fulani herders.

The north exhibits a wider fluctuation than the south in rainfall conditions from one year to the next within a normally expected range (i.e. as opposed to real drought). The fact that there has been no appreciable trend of permanent outmigration means that people in the north have adapted to conditions of sharp differences from one year to the next, some taste of

Page 16 of 37 HEA Niger 2007 Report Final Final HEA Tessaoua District, Niger – September 2007 which is offered in the North Settled Livelihood Zone Profile where (as so frequently happens in the sahel) in the same reference year one side of the zone experienced a good harvest and the other a bad harvest. The higher ownership of land and livestock per capita in the north than in the south, although not spectacular, allows enough success in good years to cover the losses of bad years, and in this the food stocks and realisable cash of the wealthier (through livestock sales and trading assets) are also important to the poor, because the wealthy give them support with both credit and gifts. If a growing population begins to diminish either the land or livestock advantages of the north, then the disadvantages will begin to bite harder. In the nature of things, it will be the poorer who feel this first and most: they will not be able any more to face the bad (but non-crisis) years without impoverishment from which they cannot fully recover.

For the present, the dependency of poorer on wealthier people might already beg a question. Taking north and south together, can the one-third of Better Off and Middle households really afford to give substantial employment, loans and direct support to the two-thirds of Very Poor and Poor households? The huge divide in the income graph above says that they can, and that over the years it is profitable for them to do so. Again, the direct dependency of the poorer on the wealthier should not be exaggerated. They have some other income, including from work migration chiefly to Nigeria and local ‘self-employment’ cutting and selling firewood and fodder grass to both rural and urban customers and portering and selling water on market days. But unless they can find ways to increase either their primary production of crops and livestock or their other income, they are likely to remain crucially dependent on their economic relationship with their wealthier patrons. A nuanced view of the relationship between poorer and wealthier people is given in Annex 2.

Food security and livelihood security

Neither zone is regularly a substantial net exporter food, since it takes a relatively good year to achieve this. The north swings between a modest surplus (some of which is stored in wealthier people’s granaries for a year or more) and quite acute deficit; the south is probably on average in slight deficit. We have not found information on trade flows out and in of each zone. We know that in virtually all years, even quite bad years, grain is put on the market by villagers and some must leave the District. But then grain is imported for some part of the year too, and it is difficult to estimate the balance.

One interesting comment made at the village level was that normally the small sales of the Poor and Very Poor households together outweigh the amount marketed by the wealthier households. Thus Better Off people, who tend to make a part of their income through retailing crops, get most of their supply from the poorer farmers; and indeed their patronage, whether in offering preferential employment or in directing zakat donations, is partly aimed at keeping the crop sales of poorer people coming through their hands.

Groundnuts are a cash crop exported for the District every year in greater or lesser quantities. But traders interviewed in Tessaoua town and Ourafan, one of two main market centres in the north, also made it clear that cowpeas, the ubiquitous staple pulse which is also a cash crop, were sold every year of the present decade, good or bad, going mainly to traders taking it to Nigeria where there is a constant demand. It was also stated that millet was exported from the south into Nigeria the crisis year of 2005: in a period of regional shortage Nigerian demand held sway and contributed to the record prices in Tessaoua and far beyond. More usually Nigeria is a net exporter of grain into Niger (Ref. 5 ). At Ourafan it was said that the north has been mainly in overall deficit for a generation. This does not stop the yearly trade in millet to Balbegie and on to Tanout (main centres in the wider agro- pastoral area of Maradi and Zinder regions) and far north to Agadez and Arlit. But on the whole, Tessaoua seems far from being a breadbasket area in Niger.

Page 17 of 37 HEA Niger 2007 Report Final Final HEA Tessaoua District, Niger – September 2007

‘Petit mil’ (‘Small millet’)

In Tessaoua, this does not mean ‘millet’ as opposed to ‘sorghum’ – ‘gros mil’ – which is the most common meaning in West Africa. Rather, it is a particular part of the millet harvest.

Farmers showed us the petit mil among the standing millet crop, with its thin stem and small head. They explained that these come from a proportion of the germinated millet which does not develop properly but has not been weeded out. The grains are much smaller than fully developed millet and the ‘ear’ contains more ‘husk’ than grain. The grains themselves are lighter than millet proper: a tia (common bowl-measure) of petit mil weighs 2.5 kg, full millet weighs 2.8 kg, and women further indicated that its calorific value was less than this might imply, saying that to cook a meal for 6 people, they would prepare 1 tia of millet but 1.5 tia of petit mil. But this is not immature millet – if left in the fields it would not develop any further. It serves a valuable role as it can be harvested 2 to 3 weeks before the main millet harvest – breaking the hunger season, even though it usually does not cover all food needs until the main harvest. Because it is somewhat bitter in taste, ’petit mil’ is usually grilled before it is pounded and cooked.

Wealthier farmers sometimes invite poorer farmers to gather the petit mil from their fields and use it for themselves.

Because the performance of rainfall can be quite varied within a single zone, no one village’s experience can be representative. Information was collected from informants in several villages in the south and north on their estimate of rainfall quality and harvest in each year of the present decade. The results are tabulated below using a score where 0 is the central value, denoting an ordinary performance - what the farmers call ‘more or less acceptable’. The scoring then goes up via + marks to +++ which denotes an excellent year, or down via – marks to - - - which denotes a very severe harvest failure. The villages are at points across the width of each zone. In the north the current harvest (2007/08) was at a stage where villagers were confident of the result, and so their scoring is included. In the south, however, although the standing crops were considered very good, there was growing concern about the lack of showers in September and the possible effect on the maturing of the grain. Therefore the 2007/08 scoring is omitted.

South Gazori Fara Sarba 2006 / 07 +++ ++ ++ 2005 / 06 + 0 0 2004 / 05 0 ------2003 / 04 - +++ ++ 2002 / 03 - - +++ 2001 / 02 + - - 2000 / 01 - ++ +

North Dan Sansana Yachin Magariya Meyro Wakili Gila 2007 / 08 +++ ++ +++ +++ 2006 / 07 + + - - - - 2005 / 06 - - 0 0 2004 / 05 ------0 0 2003 / 04 0 - + 0 2002 / 03 - - - - ++ 2001 / 02 ++ +++ +++ 0 2000 / 01 +++ - - + ++

Page 18 of 37 HEA Niger 2007 Report Final Final HEA Tessaoua District, Niger – September 2007

The variance in a given year and within the same limited zone can be wide. It is particularly striking that the crisis year of 2004/05 does not show absolutely across the board in either zone. This was so surprising that villagers were pressed about this and confirmed that although the harvest was extremely bad for a great number of villages, it was just mediocre for some. But they also made clear that economically the year was extremely bad for all because of the great hike in grain prices and the collapse of livestock prices. The purchase price of grain is so important to most people that when asked about the performance of a given year, it is very common for respondents to begin by recalling the grain prices as the big indicator rather than talking about the rainfall. The quality of pasture counts too, and the vagaries of the sahel are such that it is even possible for pastures to be mediocre when crops are good. A Fulani farmer/herder interviewed in the south agreed that the current 2007 rains had allowed good crop prospects up to mid-September, but there were serious problems with pasture – and to emphasis the point he said that there was an acute local shortage of grasses for roof thatching.

The tables show the full range of different year performances. Insofar as a pattern can be detected, in sahelian terms the picture above is out of balance, in that not only was there a crisis year, but this was generally preceded and/or succeeded by mediocre or unsatisfactory years. It is notable that when poorer farmers talk of indebtedness in the present decade they refer to a build-up even before the crisis year. Up to today they have generally not yet made up their livestock losses, nor have even the wealthier managed to properly refill their grain stores, and this must tell upon the amount of grain marketed. Annex 3 offers the sequence of years in a northern village with the villagers’ commentary.

Given the frequency of poor harvests in the sahel, a primary food security question must be why there are not more frequent crises, or in other words, how do people overcome the ‘ordinary’ bad year. In the North Settled Zone Profile a comparison is offered of both good and poor harvest performance as it affects the household economy of each wealth group. The poor harvest is bad enough to bring even the Better Off far below there more usual surplus of production over requirements, so that even they were forced to buy considerably more grain than usual. But it is particularly important to see the effects on cash incomes of good & bad harvests, since this is a highly monetised economy – so that it is difficult to conceive of the difference between food security and livelihood security, as mentioned in the introduction above.

North Settled Livelihood Zone Cash Sources: Good Harvest Cash Sources: Poor Harvest

100% Gifts 10 0 % Loan etc

Migration Migration 80% 80% Trade Trade 60% Transport 60% Transport

40% Self employment Self-employment 40% Employment 20% Employment Livestock Sales 20% Livestock sales 0% L/stock prod. L/stock prod. 0% Sales sales Crop Sales V Poor Poor Middle Bet Crop sales ter-off

Page 19 of 37 HEA Niger 2007 Report Final Final HEA Tessaoua District, Niger – September 2007

These graphs show the different proportions of income sources between the two circumstances. In the Profile we see that although absolute income diminishes with a poor harvest, there is no collapse: the worst blow is to the Middle group, who are down by 27%, followed by the Poor at -22%, the Better Off at -14% and the Very Poor at -2%. Without rehearsing all the explanations in the Profile, it is worth looking at the difference between the above graphs. The Very Poor have the least to lose in cash terms from diminished crop sales, and in fact they lose more in terms of self-employment earnings (grass-collecting and sales, and some services rendered to wealthier people); they make up almost all the gap through increased migration for work, often enough at the cost of the sole available man in these often labour-poor households staying away for double the number of weeks or months than the usual period. They also double or treble the loans they take to tide them over the extended hungry season, and here there may be an element of charity from the creditors, who cannot always have confidence that such very poor clients will be able to repay any time soon, if at all.

The Poor seem to lose most proportionately though the fall in crop sales, showing that they are more properly farmers than the Very Poor (as they are in the South Central zone too). They make up the gap partly through increasing the proportion of livestock sales (admittedly in a budget down by more than 25%), again showing they are more genuinely agro-pastoral than the Very Poor. But like the Very Poor they are also heavily dependent on employment; and here they manage to increase local earnings more than migration earnings, which must denote a lesser social cost to the family than paid by the Very Poor. And they make up some loss in self-employment earnings with petty trade, although this seems not to be a customary occupation. They have more diversified responses to a bad year, and to that extent, although they are extremely poor by comparison with the Better Off, or even the Middle, they are less vulnerable in this respect than the very poorest.

The box below describes how a typical Poor household in a southern village survives, through many and diverse income earning activities, dependent on able bodied household members.

Poor households in Fara Village, South Central Livelihood Zone. In 2006-07 a Poor household in Fara managed to send their children to school, to meet the family’s annual calorie needs and even feed some children of poorer households. But this was not mainly from their meagre land and livestock, but much more due to the able-bodied household members keeping very busy doing relatively low paid work for others. A typical Poor household consists of a man, his wife and their seven children, three of whom are old enough to work. They cultivated a hectare of land on which they grew sufficient to cover 3.5 months of their calorie needs. But after meeting debt repayments and other economic, social, and religious obligations they were left with enough food to cover only 2 months of the year. To fill their food gap they relied on the market, buying mainly millet and sorghum, topped up with occasional purchases of cassava flour and root crops. They tried to add variety and quality to their diet through tiny quantities of meat (1/2 kg per month), milk (less than 100ml / day), vegetable oil (2 litres a year) and sugar (1kg / month). Casual employment was found both locally and on work migration in Nigeria. The local work included labour in the fields of wealthier neighbours, and brick-making; women were paid to pound millet; and both men and women gathered fodder, firewood and wild foods for sale; further money came form making mats and ropes and carrying and selling water to other brick workers. During the year they also sold a couple of goats and some chickens to make ends meet. With such sales their tiny goat flock cannot increase over the years. But despite these various activities, they were obliged to borrow about 10,000 FCFA during the year to bridge urgent income gaps – equivalent to about one-twelfth of their annual cash income.

The important factor for both the Middle and the Better Off is livestock sales: it is really these that cover the crop losses in a bad year and indeed seem to allow them to continue to offer employment – even expanded employment – to their poorer neighbours and kin. There is

Page 20 of 37 HEA Niger 2007 Report Final Final HEA Tessaoua District, Niger – September 2007 reason to believe that the same is true of the South, even if there are differences with the North in the precise relationship between crops and livestock. If the Southerners are not usually called ‘agro-pastoral’, they are certainly agro-livestock, as illustrated by the description of Middle households in a village in the South Central Livelihood Zone in the box below. By the same token, it is difficult to see any crisis occurring which doesn’t involve some kind of livestock crisis: quite acute loss of crops does not seem to be enough. And whilst it must be very rare, if possible at all, for a pasture crisis to happen when crops are satisfactory, the 2005 event showed that the market in grain can at least add greatly to a livestock crisis. It was not simply lack of pasture that force people to sell off livestock at a quarter of the usual seasonal price; it was the need to gain cash to buy grain at record prices that finally put so many animals on the market at the same time, so that even the Nigerian demand could not sustain livestock prices.

Middle Households, Madobi Village, South Central Livelihood Zone. This type of household is not rich by local standards, but it is firmly on the wealthier side of the divide, with 3 to 5 times the land-holding of Very Poor and Poor households respectively, and 5 to 7 times their annual cash income. Their cattle and sheep and goats give them about half of their annual cash income from sales offtake, without diminishing the herd and flock size over the year. In 2006-07, this household of ten people cultivated about 3.5 hectares on which they produced enough cereals, pulses and other crops to cover more than half of their annual calorie needs after sales, religious obligation (zakat), social obligation (community festivities and gifts) and seed retention. Although they did not sell any of their cereals, they could afford to maximise their income by waiting until the market price of cowpeas had virtually doubled compared with the post harvest price. The market provided the remaining food: staples (including rice or maize imported from Nigeria) dried vegetables, meat, cooking oil, seasonings. Apart from selling they own livestock, they retailed cereals and animals (i.e. they purchased for resale); another key income earner was their ox-cart, which they rented out. In addition to the purchase of food and household basics, this type of household invested around 30% of their annual income in their agricultural and animal production, including agricultural inputs, hired labour and veterinary costs.

Page 21 of 37 HEA Niger 2007 Report Final Final HEA Tessaoua District, Niger – September 2007

4 IMPLICATIONS FOR ADVOCACY AND PROGRAMMING

Advocacy

The 2005 crisis resulted inter alia in a widespread acceptance in the aid community that whether or not there had been a ‘famine’, high rates of malnutrition were chronic in Niger and highly tied to poverty. Beyond that there has been something of a divide between emphasis on the one hand on the need to improve services and change feeding and hygiene habits - especially of mothers - in the care of infants, and on the other hand an emphasis on tackling poverty itself as the primary cause of malnutrition. In its draft Hunger Reduction Strategy (Ref. 7) SCUK recognises both strands and indeed seeks to concentrate on the ‘underlying causes’ and ‘immediate causes’ of malnutrition as identified in the UNICEF Conceptual Framework.

This Hunger Reduction strategy aims to tackle the causes of malnutrition at all three levels (immediate, underlying and basic causes) but focuses on underlying causes related to household food insecurity and the social and care environment and the immediate cause of inadequate food intake.

This might also form the basis of an advocacy strategy, but it would not be new in the Niger context. It may be that SCUK does have something new to say from its experience in Niger of child care centres and nutrition outreach including nutrition and health education for mothers. But as regards household food insecurity, does the present survey offer grounds for a new emphasis or angle? There have been important livelihoods surveys before, but given the initially muted reaction of government and some donors to the market crisis of 2005, three related message do not seem to have got across to them:

- Niger’s rural economy is highly cash-oriented; - food security for the poor is highly market-dependent; - food security and livelihood security are all but indistinguishable.

The present survey has put a shape and some quantities to these matters. The above graph showing the high skewing of rural incomes in the South Central zone is likely to surprise many who see it, including those who know about the tendency but not where it has reached. The point is not only the dimension of divide between poorer and wealthier in terms of cash income, but that the poorer are primarily dependent on cash income for their survival, since they cannot make even half a living with their own land and labour and livestock assets.

A point of interest should be the differences amongst the poorer half of the population. The Poor households are shown to have a stake in primary production, both crop cultivation and their own livestock, where the Very Poor hardly have such at all. However even the Poor have very modest assets indeed. Government and agencies still have some tendency to assume that the solution to food insecurity must be in increasing people’s food production for direct consumption. This needs to be challenged. On the basis of current land-holdings which can only reduce per capita in the medium term, and normal inter-annual variations in rainfall performance, no investment is likely to make poor people self-sufficient in food, even if this were otherwise an economically appropriate aim. Insofar as development investment is targeted at primary production, the main aim should be to increase farmers’ cash income – in other words, to increase the cash value of their labour on their own land.

In the Tessaoua area, and the many similar areas which are not ‘grain baskets’, the main attention should probably be on cowpeas and groundnuts as by far the main cash earners, in terms at least of protecting them from disease and otherwise promoting better yields. The

Page 22 of 37 HEA Niger 2007 Report Final Final HEA Tessaoua District, Niger – September 2007 usual inter-cropping especially of cowpeas would mean that some improved inputs would enhance cereals production as well.

Improved crop production would increase post-harvest residues available for livestock, but it is not clear that the great imbalance in livestock assets and earnings between poorer and wealthier can be tackled by any input. Nevertheless, their handful of smallstock are the first line of economic security for the Poor, if not the Very Poor. Secondly, the capacity of the wealthier to employ the poorer and purchase their products and services identified under ‘self-employment’, comes more from livestock earnings than from crop earnings. Even in areas where the larger proportion of earnings are from crop sales, including neighbouring areas of Maradi and Zinder Regions, livestock earnings still form a crucial part of household budgets for the wealthier half of the population, as shown, for instance, in CARE’s livelihoods studies of a decade ago, and MSF Suisse’s HEA surveys in Zinder in November 2006 & November 2007 (Refs. 2, 8, 9.). (The Nigerian market demand guarantees that livestock are Niger’s most valuable export.) Enhanced protection of livestock in terms of veterinary services ought to be a priority. And if any subsidy is permissible today, then subsidy on fodder items, possibly imported from Nigeria, might be a priority in years when there are extensive problems with pasture conditions. This would probably require an economy of scale, and therefore would require a national-level policy and programme.

The Sources of Food graphs in the Profiles strongly underline the message that in rural Niger today, the poorer you are the more you depend on the market for your food (or on in-kind earnings which are a proxy for purchase). And the income and expenditure graphs show how very close to the hunger threshold are the budgets of the poorer households in normal circumstances. The events of 2005 demonstrated that unusual hikes in staple grain prices are not merely an extra burden on poor people: they actually kill children. We may or may not call the events ‘famine’, but it is impossible to ignore the link between exceptional malnutrition and exceptional grain prices (and exceptionally low livestock selling prices influenced by mass selling in quest of the extra cash for food). The direct message should be that with a trend of going beyond a threshold which ought to be decided, grain price hikes in themselves constitute an emergency.

It may be that experience shows the difficulty, perhaps impossibility, for Niger’s government and donors to dampen by their own actions price hikes which are the result of market factors dominated by crop performance and market demand in Nigeria, to say nothing of the influence of the Niger’s other, sahelian neighbours. But an emergency requires emergency action, as early as possible. In Niger’s case we now know that a market emergency can be at least as lethal as severe local crop failure. A further point of advocacy should therefore be that in a market emergency no less than in a production failure, emergency action on cash or food distribution, whether direct relief or conditional on work, should be considered early, faute de mieux.

2005 brought to the attention of many in the aid community the profound depth of rural poverty in Niger, and the primary purpose of the present HEA survey was to explore this in a non-crisis setting in relation to malnutrition, in terms of access to food. Perhaps a final advocacy point, therefore, is that food security can only be seen in terms of overall livelihoods. That is what the HEA analysis shows, and this is particularly demonstrated by the comparison in the North Settled Livelihood Zone Profile between the good and bad harvest situations in the reference year of 2006-2007. It is only by understanding the whole picture of livelihoods in the different wealth groups – and the relationship between them – that we can understand why the loss of the crop harvest by upwards of one-half does not lead to a food crisis.

In advocacy terms, another way of putting this is that for poor people, food security in

Page 23 of 37 HEA Niger 2007 Report Final Final HEA Tessaoua District, Niger – September 2007 the sahel, with all its ‘normal’ vagaries of rainfall and production, depends on people’s manipulation of all their sources of food and cash income: not only from crops, or from livestock, but from local employment, and from local petty trade, and crafts, and services of fetching and carrying and selling fodder grass, firewood and even water, and finally from work migration. Thus we return to the point that amongst an increasing rural population within the same area of land, the poorer households will depend increasingly on the value they get from their labour off their own land. It follows that aid towards a sustained increase in their wealth and livelihood security may be most effectively directed to what they do off- farm.

Locally an increase in the value of their work will depend heavily on an increase in the value of the harvest, in volume or in price per measure, and/or of the livestock, of their employers, who are also primary customers for their ‘self-employed’ services. It can be argued, therefore, that effective services to these producers, in inputs against pest and disease, and in roads, trade or market organisation, will have a knock-on effect on the poor – greater than if these improvements were offered only or in priority to them. On the other hand, at present, given fertilizer prices and the lack of water resources for irrigation, there is little sign of an economic way to increase yields substantially, nor of a new cash crop which might do better in the field and on the market than cowpeas and groundnuts.

However, there is every sign of a growing urban sector in the country, and perhaps more importantly in Nigeria, whose effective demand is the main determinant of the value of crops and livestock. Growing local towns as well as distant cities are also the actual and potential source of increased casual employment and service demands for rural people. Over time the push from the crowded countryside and the pull from the urban sector will result in increasing numbers of rural people taking up permanent residence in or on the peripheries of towns. The corollary in policy terms might be that, given the limited scope for improving rural production, a good deal more investment should be given to enhancing the rural-urban link. And it may be proposed that the one thing above all others that will give advantage to rural people in the rural-urban link: education. This could be seen as skills development for young adults in such occupations as masonry. But the Tessaoua case shows that whilst at present local employment is considerably more important than migrant work (although this is far from insignificant), local employment is overwhelmingly rural, i.e. agricultural labour, market servicing and a small amount of village house construction/repair. Local town demand is not at present strong, and work in cities in Nigeria is still an essential substitute for poorer people, although it bears a social cost.

Taking a longer view, therefore, the priority must be formal education for the current young generation and those that follow. The rural-urban transition entails considerable suffering, including social costs at the village level and the miseries of urban shanty-towns. But no country has grown substantially richer without it, and no successful growth in the urban and commercial economy has ever been achieved without major increase in the educated population. Tessaoua’s poorer villagers vote on this judgement of the future with their own very scarce money, sacrificed to send girls as well as boys to school. They suffer from a lack of quality and commitment in primary school teaching and equipment, and from a severe lack of nearby secondary schools. In view of all of the above, it seems almost modest to advocate that for every dollar spent on rural development, a dollar should be spent on the formal education of rural children.

Programming

We have begun above with a discussion of Advocacy, because this also provides a context for considering SCUK’s own programming priorities in the light of the HEA analysis.

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SCUK’s draft Hunger Reduction Strategy (Ref. 7) says:

‘Wherever possible links on the ground will be made between health and hunger reduction programmes to optimize impact on child nutrition. It should also be noted that efforts to improve household access to food, income and assets will also have a positive impact on child protection, access to education and health services.’

For projects which do not solely focus on the immediate treatment of malnutrition, i.e. those that seek to engage with the underlying causes of malnutrition, the following impacts are to be reported upon:

1. Changes in child caring practices 2. Changes in household income levels 3. Changes in child related household expenditure 4. Changes in household asset holdings 5. Changes in household food access

The HEA analysis is directly relevant to items 2, 4 and 5, whilst it has nothing direct to say about 1, and does not distinguish household expenditure on children in the accounting of the household budget except in the matter of costs of schooling. It should be said that the task of getting the data on the household as a unit is heavy enough for a single survey within reasonable time and cost limits. However, the HEA baseline would give the context for any further inquiry into related elements, including child-related household expenditure or the economic pressure on mothers’ labour and its relation to child-care.

Overall, it is clear from the above that a baseline understanding of household economy is likely to be highly useful, if not essential, in the consideration of intervention strategies. The survey evidence can be used to propose areas of intervention, but any given area will naturally need further fact-finding and discussion at village level. The underlying principle of what follows is implied in the list above, namely that increased household income, and increased saleable assets in a bad year, will have some positive effect on the nutrition of children in both quantity and quality terms. We know that the other factors impinge, notably other pressing needs for the use of cash, and the disease and child-care environment. But the principle remains that increased and/or more trustworthy household income is a good thing for child nutrition.

Increasing household income

In discussing advocacy, we have indicated that for poorer households, given their limited land assets, changes in household cash income levels are a more important aim than increasing their crop production for consumption, desirable as the latter might be. This is particularly true of the Very Poor, whose land holdings (or the land borrowed from others) tend to be minimal in size and/or of poor quality. For the poor, insofar as aid to production were feasible, it is likely that help for cash crop production (especially cowpeas) would be more advantageous than concentration on cereals. In this respect, a suggestion made in 2005 (Ref. 6) concerning specific support to women in the cultivation of their portion of land, to increase their earnings from such cash crops as groundnuts, sorrel, sesame and okra and other vegetables, might be revisited by SCUK.

Since the greater part of household income of poorer people is obtained other than from their own crop and livestock production, SCUK might look mainly at these other activities for opportunities to help increase income. What do poorer people do, and why don’t they do more of it? They are heavily dependent on local employment in good years as well as bad, but as mentioned above, increase in the amount of employment or in real wage rates must depend on increases in the amount or value of the produce of the their employers. This in

Page 25 of 37 HEA Niger 2007 Report Final Final HEA Tessaoua District, Niger – September 2007 turn depends heavily on the accidents of local rainfall and on the evolution of the wider urban/export market demand. But anyway, it would probably be too indirect a venture for an NGO to try to help increase the wealth of the wealthier households in the hope of a knock-on effect on the employment of poorer people.

It is likely that attention to the ‘self-employment’ part of the earnings of poorer people might yield more direct results. The HEA data shows that these earnings are particularly important for the Very Poor in both livelihood zones, although they appear to diminish in a poor harvest year. SCUK might wish to look further at these activities and their constraints. Given the many factors impinging in people’s decisions about where they expend their labour (especially as between employment and ‘self-employment’) which of the latter activities are susceptible to support? For instance, there may be something that can be done to increase earnings from firewood or fodder grass cutting and sale, if transport of the item to roadside or town market were an issue, and a benefit could be obtained by helping organize and initially capitalize groups to have access to bullock-cart transport. Or for craft items such as mat and rope-making, which are engaged in by households across the wealth groups, it may be that easing access by poorer workers to the raw material could begin a benign cycle of increased earnings for them in this area.

There is always the factor of what the market will bear in terms of increased supply of a given item and prices obtained as against an economic cost of production. (There is also the consideration of the impact on the environment of over-exploiting some resources, notably firewood.) Intervention would probably need to cover a number of different options for different people, rather than go for a major concentration on one item alone.

Changes in household asset holdings

This must refer to physical assets, rather than the single greatest asset of poorer households which is their labour capacity. There is an evident connection between physical assets in land and livestock and income-earning capacity. But there is also a crucial connection between asset-holding and food/livelihood security: i.e. people’s capacity to resist a bad year through sale of assets, but without permanently damaging their asset base. In this respect the test of successful intervention to support incomes or asset holdings is not simply how much more is available to a given household in a good year, but what happens in a bad year in terms of sustainability (although not a catastrophic year when all such bets are off even for a good proportion of wealthier people). In this section we do not deal with the land aspect, because ownership issues are beyond the position or capacity of an NGO to deal with. Indirectly one may comment that insofar as other activities may make incomes more secure, the phenomenon of land mortgaging and outright sale by poorer households will diminish.

Livestock ownership and derived earnings are so heavily skewed towards the wealthier third of households that one may wonder whether this is a sector worth investing in for the poorer households – why they seem unable to get or maintain ownership of more than tiny numbers. For these, it will almost always be a question of smallstock ownership (not forgetting poultry) rather than cattle. But a point may be made about working oxen and bulls. By far the most valuable work they do in this agro-economy is in pulling carts rather than in pulling ploughs. The South Central zone in particular is one of very active trade in local markets, fuelled partly by the proximity to Nigeria, and the capacity to run a cart both furnishes direct transport-fee earnings and enhances the owner’s trading capacity. Carts are nearly all owned by Better Off and Middle-wealth people. Direct transport fees alone may add some 50,000 CFA to annual earnings. This is useful money for anyone, but even one-half or one-third would be highly significant to incomes of poorer people which total only 100-150,000 CFA in a year. Better off people sometimes (mainly in the South Central zone) lend an ox, or even a cart, to a poorer household on some arrangement: for an ox it is usually a maintenance and fattening contract, where the poor keeper may use the labour of the ox so long as the animal thrives.

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The question SCUK might pursue is whether there are other ways in which some poorer people might get the use, if not the ownership, of work-oxen and/or carts. The most likely avenue might be in initially capitalizing hire, whether by individuals or by groups of people.

The short answer as to why poorer people own so few smallstock appears to be that Very Poor people can almost never afford the price of even goats to begin a flock, and both they and Poor people periodically diminish substantially, if not wipe out, their holdings as part of the price of surviving bad years. This would suggest that smallstock ownership is primarily a hedge against misfortune rather than a more progressive wealth–generating resource. SCUK is well-versed in several countries in projects where capital in smallstock is given to poor people, often women, as a wealth-generating investment. This may be applicable to the sahel circumstances, but further understanding would need to be sought of management constraints, including land carrying capacity, and the effect of the ‘ordinary’ bad year, as opposed to the much rarer, severe drought year.

Changes in household food access: dampening seasonality

As said above, the principle behind all the comments in this section is that increased and/or more stable incomes will increase household – and children’s - access to food in quantity and quality. Here we may look at one cardinal feature of the sahelian economy and access to food within it, and that is seasonality. The seasonal calendars in the Profiles show inter alia four things: when most of the harvested grain is sold; when people begin to buy grain from the market; when people tend to take credit, and when they return it; and when is the period of the ‘hunger gap’. All these elements affect or reflect food access, and SCUK may consider whether there are any points of intervention suggested by this seasonal viewpoint

For instance, if SCUK were to think in terms of some system of income support, or soft loans or welfare payments to the poorest, then the matter of timing would be very important. Poorer people tend to sell all or most of the grain they intend to sell in a given year immediately after the harvest, so that peak sales are in October-December. In this buyers’ market the prices are likely to be the lowest for the year, but they sell now because this is the only way to get cash in their hands for many needs, including the pressure to repay credit, including in many cases remaining, long-standing credit from the crisis year of 2005. More regular credit is taken especially during the cultivating season, when at least seed inputs need to be bought and when – during these last pre-harvest months, the hunger gap strikes, because people are long out of their own harvest stocks, and are also at the end of their money resources, having inter alia bought staple food since possibly February and certainly April. If they are to depend on borrowing from their customary creditor or ‘patron’ at the critical time of year, they must make sure they have repaid previous credit, to maintain trust.

A welfare payment might be timed to reduce borrowing in the cultivating/hunger gap season; or it might be timed to reduce immediate post-harvest sales in favour of retention of stocks for sale a little later when prices have risen (even if not as late as wealthier people can afford to wait for some of their surplus sales) so that an advantage is felt when – probably soon after – the same household begins buying staples on the same market.

Education

Finally, we may consider investment in longer term benefits via education. Villagers have graded expectations for education somewhat according to the level reached by children. For instance, basic literacy and numeracy will give advantages to women as well as men in market and trading activities – including in the migrant work of men; and will give better marriage prospects to girls. Graduation from secondary school will lift the child off the land, out of the village and into the world of formal employment and commerce; and the remittances expected will contribute inter alia to the food security of the village household.

Page 27 of 37 HEA Niger 2007 Report Final Final HEA Tessaoua District, Niger – September 2007

We have made main points about education in the advocacy discussion above. SCUK may wish to take on board some contribution to this vital sector. As regards helping with current expenditure of poorer households, a contribution to the 4-5% of annual household spent by poorer households on their schoolchildren for minimum presentable clothing, pens, exercise books and daytime snacks. More direct aid might be given for a school feeding system, since a good part of the four times more money spent by wealthier households on their schoolchildren is reportedly on food items – i.e. poorer children are at a disadvantage in this respect, and it is known that this leads to poor concentration and educational disadvantage.

SCUK is unlikely to be able to tackle the wider question of poor quality primary school provision, and the poor spread of secondary schools whereby most villages are not within walking distance of such a school, and poorer people cannot afford to educate their children beyond primary level because they cannot afford the rent and food costs of sending their children away to school. However SCUK might consider bursaries for poorer schoolchildren to attend distant secondary schools.

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Page 28 of 37 HEA Niger 2007 Report Final Final HEA Tessaoua District, Niger – September 2007

References

1. Traitement des Données: Enquête sur les Causes de la Malnutrition - Nord Tessaoua, août 2007. SCUK Niamey Septembre 2007

2. Evaluation de la Sécurité des Conditions de Vie dans le Département de Maradi. CARE- International au Niger & BARA/University of Arizona. 1998

3. Beyond Any Drought: Root causes of chronic vulnerability in the sahel. P.Trench, J.Rowley, M. Diarra, F.Sano & B. Keita, The Sahel Working Group, IIED, June 2007

4. Niger 2005: not a famine, but something much worse. Gary Eilerts, USAID. ODI Humanitarian Practice Network 2006 (www.odihpn.org)

5. Food Security and Cross-Border Trade in the Kano-Katsina-Maradi (K2M) Corridor. CILSS et al Joint Mission Report, Club du Sahel et de l’Afrique de l’Ouest, July 2006

6. Report on Livelihoods Assessment Consultancy in Niger 30/9-7/10 2005. Julius Holt, SCUK November 2005

7. Save The Children UK Hunger Reduction Strategy 2006-2011. Draft 26 July 06

8. Evaluation de la Sécurité des Conditions de Vie dans le Département de Zinder. CARE- International au Niger & BARA/University of Arizona. April 1997

9. La Sécurité Alimentaire des Ménages au Sud de Zinder Un An Après la Crise - Niger novembre 2006. Arnaud Ghizzi, Médecins Sans Frontières - Suisse

Other documents consulted

Rapport de la formation en analyse d'économie des ménages. 7-21 juillet 2006. OXFAM/NOVIB Niger

The Cost of Being Poor: markets, mistrust and malnutrition in southern Niger 2005-2006. S.Harrigan, SCUK June 2006

Livelihoods Zones and Profiles for Niger (2003). www. fews.net -> livelihoods

Page 29 of 37 HEA Niger 2007 Report Final Final HEA Tessaoua District, Niger – September 2007

Annexe 1 : Villages included in this survey

South-Central Livelihood Zone

Birni Dafassa Fatouma Fara Gazori Madobi Nbounni Sarba Toki

North Settled Livelihood Zone

Akoumba Dan Ahi Guidan Chantali Guidan Dogari Kelawayi Magariya Maikoutoutoutu Maisoutchi Sansanawa Wakili Yachin Gila

Page 30 of 37 HEA Niger 2007 Report Final Final HEA Tessaoua District, Niger – September 2007

Annex 2 Akoumba – Mayahi – Zone Nord

Entretiens avec le chef de village et les sages sur la situation des 8 dernières années. Hélène Berton 29/09/2007

Historique : Les habitants d’Akoumba ont construit 3 puits avant de s’installer ici. Ils se sont installés il y a environ 60 ans. Avant il y avait une forêt. Ils viennent de Dogon Shingi, à 35 minutes de là et ont quitté leurs villages car ils manquaient de terrains à cultiver dans leurs villages. Trois personnes ont fondées le village mais il y a à présent beaucoup de monde et les terres commencent à manquer. Ceux qui ont quitté le village sont pourtant plus nombreux que ceux qui restent, mais comme ici, il n’y a pas de commerce et de marchés, tout se base sur la production agricole.

Pour l’avenir de leurs enfants, ils souhaitent avoir une école dans le village, car les enfants sont obligés d’aller dans d’autres villages pour aller à l’école et s’est compliquer. L’an dernier seuls deux enfants ont commencé l’école, mas ont arrêté au cours de l’année.

Propriété terrienne Les nantis achètent les terres aux pauvres. Certains ont aussi des enfants qui partent en exode et rapporte de l’argent pour acheter des terres. Un demi hectare coûte 70,000 à 80,000 F. Les pauvres et très pauvres vendent leurs terres pendant la saison sèche. Le chef empêche la vente des terres pendant l’hivernage. Beaucoup n’ont pas de champs à eux dans le village, on leur prête pour pouvoir cultiver (environ 0,5 ha).

Relation entre les plus pauvres et les plus aisés Les très pauvres et pauvres travaillent gratuitement dans les champs des nantis en échange des terres qui leurs sont prêtées. On leur donne des champs difficile et peu fertiles qui vont demander beaucoup de travail. Chaque année on leur donne un nouveau champ à travailler.

Les enfants des plus pauvres de 15 à 20 ans vont travailler chez les nantis. Ils reçoivent des repas et de la nourriture pour ramener à la maison. Ils effectuent les tâches suivantes : préparation des terres, semis, sarclage, récolte, abattage du bois, transport de sable et argile pour le banco, etc. Les enfants plus jeunes peuvent aussi aller manger dans les foyers des nantis mais ce n’est pas très courant.

Un nanti ne prête pas à n’importe quel pauvre, c’est lié à leurs relation, qui peut être familiale mais surtout amicale. S’il y a entente, tu donnes du mil, jusqu’à 20 bottes par an, sous forme de prêt. La personne à qui l’on prête n’est pas obligée de rendre, on lui donne le temps ; mais si elle ne redonne pas, on ne lui prête plus.

Pour le riche, c’est important d’aider car il va garder son statut et pouvoir avoir les gens pour le travail, et les travailleurs vont faire plus d’heures pour lui. Si le riche qui prête à un problème, tout le monde va venir l’aider. Retenir les gens pour le travail était très important dans le passé, mais c’est un peu moins nécessaire maintenant car il y a beaucoup de plus de travailleurs.

Lorsque l’année est mauvaise, les prêts sont réduits. Si on peut recevoir 20 bottes en année normale, on en reçoit que 2-3 en année difficile car il a beaucoup plus de demandes et moins de disponibilité. Les riches ne sont pas un filet de sécurité pour les pauvres car en fait, lorsque les temps deviennent difficiles, leur aide diminue.

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Celui qui donne « Mai Jin Kaï » et celui qui est respecté et a un certain statut social. On lui porte ces affaires, on lui fait des révérences pour le saluer et les gens vont même aller travailler dans son champ sans l’avertir

La crise de 2005 dans le village En 2004-2005, le village a été affecté, il n’y avait pas assez de nourriture pour tous. Seuls les nantis avaient des stocks (les nantis ont toujours des stocks), mais des fois ce sont des stocks destinés au commerce. En effet, si la saison est mauvaise, ils vendent des animaux pour acheter du mil pour le revendre aux gens du village. Ils achètent ces vivres aux marchés de Tessaoua, Garare, Issaouane pour les revendre aux plus pauvres du village.

En 2004-2005, les champs autours du village, plus fertilisés, ont donné mais ceux plus éloignés appartenant aux plus pauvres n’ont pas donnés. Il y avait un réel déficit de vivres dans le village. Les villages environnants n’ont pas été trop touchés, il y avait des vivres mais ceux-ci étaient très chers. Le mil local coûtait 900 F/tia. Le mil et le sorgho importaient du Nigéria et du Mali étaient moins chers mais toujours peu abordables (750 F/tia).

D’après les villageois, si les céréales du Nigéria n’étaient pas venues jusqu’à eux, il n’y aurait pas eu assez de mil pour nourrir toute la population de la région. En effet, la production était très insuffisante dans les villages de Giga, Maraki, Korom-Korom, Ourefane, Agali, Abegou jusqu’à Garare. Les zones où ça allait en 2005 étaient Dogon Chingaré, Gourjougou et Issaouane (Issaouane étaient en quelque sorte le grenier).

2007, la gestion d’une bonne récolte La récolte 2007 est prometteuse et même les plus pauvres devraient se relever.

Les pauvres vont payer leurs dettes accumulées pendant les 2-3 dernières années, et effectuer certaines dépenses comme habiller les enfants et les marier. Toutefois, vue la baisse des prix des céréales en raison des bonnes récoltes, ils vont devoir vendre une partie substantielle de leur récolte pour pouvoir faire ces dépenses.

Les plus riches vont organiser le retour des prêts, qu’ils vont stocker. Certains vont également acheter des céréales, aussi pour les stocker jusqu’à ce qu’ils entendent parler d’une zone où ça ne va pas pour les revendre plus cher. Ils vendent aussi aux négociants.

Si la personne qui veut vendre sa récolte est pressée, elle vend aux nantis du village, sinon, elle attend les négociants ou se rend aux marchés pour vendre sa récolte.

Les nantis paient la récolte moins chère que les négociants (ex : 250 F/tia pour les nantis du villages, comparé à 300F/tia pour les négociants extérieurs). L’avantage de vendre aux nantis du village est la proximité, mais aussi que les nantis vont stocker une partie de la récolte achetée dans le village et ces stocks pourront être racheter ultérieurement aisément par les plus pauvres. Dans ce sens, les plus nantis constituent en quelque sorte le grenier du village. Toutefois, les nantis ne sont jamais des greniers à 100%. Si l’année n’est pas bonne, il n’y a pas assez de céréales disponibles dans le village.

En bonne année, les nantis vont réaliser divers investissements : achat d’animaux, de moyens de locomotion, prendre une nouvelle femme et réaliser des construction.

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Annex 3 Guidan Agali – Tessaoua – Zone Nord

Entretiens avec le chef de village et les sages sur la situation des 8 dernières années. Hélène Berton 26/09/2007

Année Performance Description Récolte 2007 - Bonne Les récoltes s’annoncent bonnes malgré les chenilles pour les actuelle céréales. Le Niébé a bien produit mais est encore vert et peut être attaqué. Toutefois, les villageois nuancent la situation en raison des dettes qu’ils ont contractées à la suite de 5 relativement mauvaises années successives, auprès des nantis de ce village et des villages alentours. 90% des ménages auraient des dettes de l’ordre de 3 à 4 sacs de 25 tias (188 – 250 kg). Les ménages vont continuer à envoyer une partie de leurs enfants en exode, à l’école coranique et pratiquer le petit commerce pour compléter les revenus de l’année. Récolte 2006-2007 Acceptable Les récoltes étaient correctes grâce à des pluies abondantes bien qu’un peu tardives et l’absence d’attaques phytosanitaires. Toutefois, la récolte a en partie servi à atténuer la lourdeur des dettes prises en 2005. 90% des ménages auraient des dettes en argent et en vivres à hauteur d’environ 20,000 F. La plupart des dettes ont été contractées auprès de nantis des gros centres alentours tels Maguizaoua. L’exode est un des principaux mécanismes d’adaptation (Kano, Nigéria, Agadez). Les ménages en difficulté envoient également leurs enfants dans des écoles coraniques à Zinder, Maradi, Agadez. Récolte 2005-2006 Mauvaise Mauvaises récoltes dues au manque de pluie et à des attaques sur le niébé. Les plus pauvres des ménages sont allés faire des travaux journaliers dans le village et les villages alentours. Les ménages avec un peu plus aisés ont fait le commerce du bétail, la vente des vêtements, le transport d’argile et de sable. Récolte 2004-2005 Catastrophique Celui qui récoltait 100 bottes en année normale n’a eu que 10 bottes en 2004. La situation était toutefois variable selon les zones. Au nord ouest, les précipitations étaient correctes, la production a été bonne. Au nord est, la situation était catastrophique. Les habitants de cette zone sont allés emprunter des vivres dans l’autre zone et sont allés faire des travaux journaliers. Il y avait de l’ « aide alimentaire » à Ourafane (traitement de la malnutrition et ration de décharge). Beaucoup de ménages ont eu recours aux dettes et crédits. Concernant le bétail, sur 100 têtes, entre ce qui a été vendu et la mortalité, seules 10 têtes sont restées ( !!). Récolte 2003-2004 Acceptable Pluies capricieuses, récoltes moyennes. Recours à l’exode, aux dettes et crédits Récolte 2002-2003 Mauvaises Manque de pluies. Recours à l’exode, aux dettes et crédits récoltes Récolte 2001-2002 Excellentes Pluies abondantes, pas d’insectes. Exode normal après la récoltes récolte, achat de bétail, stockage de céréales. Les grands producteurs pont eu jusqu’à 300 paniers juste pour le sorgho (la culture de sorgho est plus importante que le mil dans ce village). Typiquement la récolte était de 200 paniers de sorgho par ménage et 50-70 paniers de mil. Le prix de vente des céréales était relativement bas à la récolte 2001 (200F/tia de mil, 125 F/tia de sorgho) ; les prix ont toutefois fortement monté à la fin de la saison (600F/tia de mil), car des grossistes ont

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beaucoup acheté pour des pays étrangers et fait des stocks. C’est grâce à cette année-ci qu’ils ont pu acheter le bétail, avant ils en avaient peu. Toutefois, le niébé n’a pas aussi bien produit qu’en 2007. Récolte 2000-2001 Pire que 2004 ! Problème de pluies, insectes – exode, beaucoup ont quitté le village pour la période difficile mais sont revenus. Ils ne se sont toutefois pas autant endetté qu’en 2004 (2004, problème de succession de plusieurs mauvaises années).

Notes complémentaires :

Stocks D’habitude, les villageois disent qu’ils avaient jusqu’à 2 greniers de stocks pour faire face aux mauvaises années. Ils disent ne plus être en mesure de faire ces réserves depuis 11 ans car il y a de plus en plus de bouches à nourrir, la pluie est de plus en plus capricieuse et les terres moins fertiles. Pour illustrer la dégradation de la fertilité des sols, ils citent le retard de levée des semis. Autrefois, le mil commencé à lever dès le lendemain des pluies. Il faut maintenant au moins 3 jours. Avant un seul sarclage suffisait, il en faut à présent 2 ou 3. La plante met globalement plus de temps pour se développer et ne pousse pas aussi bien.

Propriété terrienne Dans ce village chacun à son champ. Les surfaces seraient suffisantes d’après les villageois si les pluies étaient régulières et plus fertiles. Ils pensent qu’il n’est toutefois pas évident qu’il y ait suffisamment de terres pour la génération suivante. De nombreuses personnes envoient leurs enfants à l’école pour que plus tard ils aient un poste dans la fonction publique. Certains vont à l’école coranique et ne reviennent plus, ils restent faire du maraboutage dans d’autres lieux. Ceux qui restent, peuvent faire du commerce ou travailler pour les autres.

Il est possible d’acheter des terres dans le village. 1 ha coûte 70,000 F si l’acheteur est du village, 100,000 F si c’est quelqu’un de l’extérieur. (L’hectare en question doit faire environ 0,5 ha car ils précisent que pour cultiver celui-ci, il faut 1 tia de mil, 1 de sorgho et 0,5 de niébé). Il est relativement facile pour quelqu’un du village d’acheter. Le vendeur est en général en difficulté financière ; « celui qui vend son champ est un faible ». L’hypothèque est une autre option, elle se fait en présence du chef du village est de témoins. Le chef atteste l’hypothèque. Lorsque le propriétaire a les moyens repayer son champ, il peut le récupérer (ou ses enfants dans le cas où il décède). Typiquement l’hypothèque de 2 ha vaut 50,000 F.

Zakat : Seulement les plus nantis la paie. Sur 10 paniers, on en donne 1. Ceux récoltant moins de 10 paniers ne la donne pas. Le propriétaire de la récolte choisi lui-même à qui il va remettre la zakat. Il s’agit en général d’handicapés, les plus pauvres, les talibés, les marabouts. Si la personne à qui tu veux donner la zakat est du village, tu la laisses dans le champs et la personne désignée vient la récupérer, si la personne n’est pas du village tu bats le mil, la mets en sac et la garde jusqu’à ce que la personne vienne la récupérer.

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Annex 4

Livestock, crops and and employment : a particularly well-off household at Kelaway Village, North Settled Zone

The household: a man, three wives, 10 children and an elderly relative who lives permanently with them.

They own 48 cattle plus 2 traction animals, out of which 40 are reproductive females. They also have 50 shoats (more sheep than goats) out of which 32 are reproductive females. From their breeding female animals in 2006 / 2007 their herd increased by 20 calves, 20 lambs and 8 kid goats. They also typically purchased 3 cattle (for fattening and resale), 5 sheep (3 of which for fattening and resale) and 4 goats (for fattening and resale).

A number were lost during the year to disease: 3 cattle, 5 sheep and 3 goats

In addition they sold 10 of their own cattle (in addition to the 3 purchased for resale), 7 of their sheep (in addition to the 5 purchased for resale) and 5 goats (in addition to the 4 purchased for resale). Once their oxen have reached the age of 4 years they are sold and replaced with younger animals.

Summary of animals sold and purchased:

Animals sold details Number price / animal 2006/7 income Cattle Oxen (4 years old) 2 150,000 FCFA 300,000 FCFA Other cattle 10 80,000 FCFA 800,000 FCFA Cattle (finished stock) 3 40,000 FCFA 120,000 FCFA Small stock Sheep 7 20,000 FCFA 140,000 FCFA Sheep (cull ewe) 5 8,000 FCFA 40,000 FCFA Goats 5 20,000 FCFA 100,000 FCFA Goats (cull doe) 4 7,000 FCFA 28,000 FCFA Total: 1,528,000 FCFA

Animals bought details number Price / animal 2006/2007 Cost Cattle Oxen (renewing stock) 3 60,000 FCFA 180,000 FCFA Young bulls (4 years) 2 750,000 FCFA 150,000 FCFA Small stock Sheep: (stock regeneration) 5 10,000 FCFA 50,000 FCFA Sheep: breeding ewes 2 10,000 FCFA 20,000 FCFA Goats: breeding does 4 8,000 FCFA 32,000 FCFA Total: 432,000 FCFA

To maintain these animals requires also purchase of fodder, water, supplement, vaccines and medications:

Bran 5 sacks per month costing 7,000 FCFA / sack over 8 months 280,000 FCFA Salt 5,000 FCFA Fodder 50,000 FCFA Water 33,000 FCFA Veterinary products 5,000 FCFA Total cost of fodder and supplement 373,000 FCFA

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The household owns 10 ha of land, keeping 2 ha for grazing and cultivating the remaining 8 ha. In Sept / Oct 2006, they harvested 100 baskets1 of millet, 60 baskets of sorghum, 20 baskets of cowpeas and 4 sacks of groundnuts. While some of the cowpeas and groundnuts are consumed, around three-quarters of each of these crops were sold. None of the millet and sorghum was sold; 40% of the millet crop was used for paying workers, for seeds, as gifts and as charity (zakat) while 10% of the sorghum crop was used for charity and for ceremonies. The household was able to cover virtually all of its calorie needs from the remaining crop production and the milk from their cattle.

In addition to purchasing twenty 50 kg sacks of millet and five 50 kg sacks of sorghum, they could also afford to buy preferred staples which they don’t produce: twelve 30 kg sacks of rice plus macaroni, bread, cassava flour and fresh root crops including cassava on a monthly basis. They added quality to their diet through purchases of oil (1 bottle (570 g) / week) and some meat nearly daily. Two of the sacks of millet purchased were used as gifts to other family members. They estimated that they also lent around 50,000 FCFA to other people during 2006/7.

To feed their workers, they purchased around 50 kg of cow peas, a sack of rice and 3 litres of cooking oil, costing just under 20,000 FCFA in total. They also paid out nearly 250,000 FCFA in wages for daily agricultural labour on their fields, .typically employing 125 person days for the first weeding, 100 person days for the second weeding and 35 person days for harvesting. A day of weeding cost them 1000 FCFA while harvesting cost them 400 FCFA / day. Land preparation and clearing is often done under contract, costing them 10,000 FCFA.

In addition to their cash income from the sale of their own animals and cash crops, they earned around 400,000 FCFA through selling household goods throughout the year and occasional trading in cereals. (While such households also have a couple of adult sons who might spend up to 4 months working in Nigeria, this is seen as a means of raising money for their future wedding or to make social / commercial contacts rather than out of economic necessity for the households. They often return with imported household goods for sale in the village.)

Six out of the ten children attend school, and the annual household clothing bill comes to around 100,000 FCFA. They spend around 250,000 FCFA on community engagements and ceremonies. Despite their necessary productive investments and household and community expenses, they are able to put some money aside in a good year.

1 The weight of a basket depends on the type of crop and the quality of the harvest. For example in a year when the rains have failed, there are fewer grains per stem and hence a basket contains a lesser amount of edible crop. In this particular case, a basket of millet, sorghum or cowpeas contained 10 tia (a tia of millet or cowpeas weighs 2.8 kg and a tia of sorghum 2.5 kg on average). A sack of groundnuts in their shell will produce just less than 30 kg of groundnuts when shelled.

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Annex 5: Data collection teams

The personnel of this assessment took part in theory and field training on HEA. The people named below all formed part of the data collection teams. An asterisk represents those who formed the final analysis and interpretation team.

SCUK

Abdourahamane Ado Nutritional assistant Ibrahim Mahamadou Nutritional assistant Maman Sani Yahaya Nutritional assistant Bizo Dan Kassoua Nutritional assistant Abdou Malam Dodo* Food security monitor Ibrahima Issa* Food security monitor Abdourahamane M. Kadaf* Food security monitor Hélène Berton* Food security and livelihoods programme coordinator

OXFAM GB

Margie Morard Regional food security advisor

Other (independent)

Maman Noura Garba Translator Idrissa Dan Ina Translator Mamane Garba National consultant (Novib)

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