Niger

This was replaced by a sec­ond agree­ment in 2002 that made pro­vi­sion for a part­ner­ship com­mit­tee to meet annu­al­ly. This is a forum ded­i­cat­ed to dia­logue between the two coun­tries, which also facil­i­tates the exam­i­na­tion of the state of play in devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion inter­ven­tions. Since then, Luxembourg’s offi­cial devel­op­ment assis­tance (ODA) has steadi­ly increased: from EUR 2.2 mil­lion in 1999 to EUR 36 mil­lion in 2022. Luxembourg’s ODA includes bilat­er­al and mul­ti­lat­er­al coop­er­a­tion pro­grammes, sup­port to NGOs and human­i­tar­i­an action.

The year 2022 saw the start of the pro­grammes in the fourth Indica­tive Coop­er­a­tion Pro­gramme (ICP IV), signed in May 2021 dur­ing the vis­it by Mohamed Bazoum, Pres­i­dent of Niger, to Lux­em­bourg. The ICP IV cov­ers the 2022 – 2026 peri­od, with an ini­tial indica­tive finan­cial enve­lope of EUR 144.5 mil­lion (which has already increased to more than EUR 150 mil­lion since it was signed). It iden­ti­fies three pri­or­i­ty areas of inter­ven­tion: the pro­vi­sion of and inclu­sive access to basic social ser­vices such as water, san­i­ta­tion, habi­tat, and food and nutri­tion secu­ri­ty; the capac­i­ty strength­en­ing of Nige­riens through sup­port for edu­ca­tion, tech­ni­cal and voca­tion­al train­ing, ado­les­cent empow­er­ment and socio-eco­nom­ic inte­gra­tion; and strength­en­ing gov­er­nance, par­tic­u­lar­ly by pro­vid­ing sup­port to the capac­i­ties of pub­lic author­i­ties to enable them to pro­vide the basic social ser­vices, pub­lic finance man­age­ment and inclu­sive finance that are needed.

As part of the launch of the new ICP IV pro­grammes, Min­is­ter Fay­ot paid a work­ing vis­it to Niger from 8 to 9 Feb­ru­ary 2022, where he met Has­sou­mi Mas­soudou, Min­is­ter of State and Min­is­ter for For­eign Affairs and Coop­er­a­tion, and Dr Ahmat Jidoud, Niger’s Min­is­ter for Finance. Min­is­ters Fay­ot and Mas­soudou signed the first pro­gramme in the ICP IV, the ​“Project to sup­port the devel­op­ment of finan­cial and sus­tain­able inclu­sion in Niger”, imple­ment­ed by ADA Micro­fi­nance, a Lux­em­bour­gish NGO spe­cial­is­ing in micro­fi­nance, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with LuxDev. This is the largest pro­gramme in the field of inclu­sive finance in a Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion part­ner coun­try, with a fund­ing enve­lope of EUR 15 mil­lion. Dur­ing the vis­it, Min­is­ter Fay­ot was also received by Mohamed Bazoum, Pres­i­dent of the Repub­lic of Niger, and Ouhoumoudou Mahamadou, Prime Min­is­ter of Niger.

At the 14^th part­ner­ship com­mit­tee meet­ing with Niger, held on 11 July 2022, Min­is­ters Fay­ot and Mas­soudou signed the fol­low­ing four bilat­er­al pro­grammes, imple­ment­ed by LuxDev: the ​“Water and San­i­ta­tion Pro­gramme”, the ​“Edu­ca­tion Sec­tor Com­mon Fund Sup­port Pro­gramme”, the ​“Pro­gramme to sup­port pub­lic finan­cial man­age­ment” and the ​“Pro­gramme to sup­port the devel­op­ment of employ­ment and employ­a­bil­i­ty of young peo­ple and women in the regions of Dos­so, Niamey and Zin­der”. In order to mit­i­gate ran­dom shocks to food pro­duc­tion and to help pre­vent food and nutri­tion­al inse­cu­ri­ty, in Octo­ber 2022 Lux­em­bourg for­malised its finan­cial sup­port for the ​“Nation­al Food Crises Pre­ven­tion and Man­age­ment Mech­a­nism (DNPG­CA)”, a mul­ti-donor mech­a­nism cre­at­ed by the Prime Min­is­ter and oper­at­ing under his author­i­ty, to sup­port Niger’s gov­ern­ment in tack­ling the recur­rent food crises in the coun­try. For the peri­od of the cur­rent ICP (2022−2026), the Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion will con­tribute EUR 6 million.

Fol­low­ing the invi­ta­tion by Mohamed Bazoum, Pres­i­dent of the Repub­lic of Niger, Prime Min­is­ter Bet­tel and Min­is­ter Fay­ot paid an offi­cial vis­it to the Repub­lic of Niger on 5 and 6 June 2022. In Niamey, Xavier Bet­tel and Franz Fay­ot were offi­cial­ly received by Mohamed Bazoum. Accom­pa­nied by Ouhoumoudou Mahamadou, Prime Min­is­ter of Niger, the min­is­ters went to Oual­lam to vis­it a cen­tre host­ing a total of 1 950 dis­placed, returned, refugee and host house­holds. The project has been set up and is sup­port­ed by the inter­na­tion­al assis­tance of the Lux­em­bourg Red Cross, the Niger Red Cross and the Dan­ish Red Cross and aims to improve the human­i­tar­i­an hous­ing con­di­tions of the most vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tions affect­ed by armed con­flicts and nat­ur­al dis­as­ters, in par­tic­u­lar by pro­vid­ing shel­ter, latrines and hygiene kits. Xavier Bet­tel and Franz Fay­ot also trav­elled to the vil­lage of Simiri to vis­it a drink­ing water dis­tri­b­u­tion sys­tem. That project was imple­ment­ed by Niger’s Min­istry of Water Resources and San­i­ta­tion through the joint financ­ing mech­a­nism, an inno­v­a­tive finan­cial instru­ment set up under the lead­er­ship of Lux­em­bourg, which was the lead part­ner in the water and san­i­ta­tion sec­tor in Niger from 2016 to 2022. This mech­a­nism has, among oth­er things, enabled the instal­la­tion of solar pan­els as an ener­gy source as well as the instal­la­tion of a more pow­er­ful pump in order to increase pro­duc­tion and access to drink­ing water in the municipality.

With­in the frame­work of ICP IV, the Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion sup­ports two mul­ti­lat­er­al pro­grammes in Niger. Over­seen by the Min­istry for the Pro­mo­tion of Women and the Pro­tec­tion of Chil­dren, the pro­gramme to ​“strength­en the rights and health of ado­les­cents aged 10 to 15 and empow­er girls in Niger” (“Illim­in” project), with a bud­get of EUR 7 mil­lion, is imple­ment­ed by the Unit­ed Nations Pop­u­la­tion Fund (UNF­PA) (2022 – 2026). To date, the Illim­in ini­tia­tive has gone through six con­sec­u­tive cycles and has made it pos­si­ble to set up 1 580 safe spaces in rur­al and urban com­mu­ni­ties in all regions of Niger and to reach near­ly 152000 ado­les­cent ben­e­fi­cia­ries. In addi­tion, since Decem­ber 2022 Lux­em­bourg has been sup­port­ing the project ​“Break­ing bar­ri­ers to girls’ edu­ca­tion in Niger”, imple­ment­ed by the World Food Pro­gramme (WFP), which is part of the joint ini­tia­tive ​“Break­ing Bar­ri­ers to Girls’ Edu­ca­tion”, imple­ment­ed by the WFP, UNF­PA and UNICEF. With a bud­get of EUR 5 mil­lion and cov­er­ing the 2022 – 2025 peri­od, the project aims to over­come obsta­cles to girls’ edu­ca­tion through an expand­ed school feed­ing pro­gramme that includes mul­ti­sec­toral actions to pro­mote girls’ education.

Cur­rent­ly, sev­en Lux­em­bour­gish devel­op­ment NGOs are run­ning activ­i­ties in Niger in the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tors (agri­cul­tur­al devel­op­ment, agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion, agri­cul­tur­al finan­cial ser­vices), admin­is­tra­tive man­age­ment pol­i­cy, train­ing of health per­son­nel, san­i­ta­tion, basic nutri­tion, health edu­ca­tion, mul­ti­sec­toral assis­tance for basic social ser­vices, finan­cial inter­me­di­aries in the for­mal and infor­mal sec­tors, edu­ca­tion, school facil­i­ties and voca­tion­al train­ing. They are also car­ry­ing out region­al projects in the field of agri­cul­tur­al coop­er­a­tives, social ser­vices and dis­as­ter pre­ven­tion and pre­pared­ness. In Jan­u­ary 2022, the total mul­ti­an­nu­al bud­get from the MFA for the frame­work agree­ments with these NGOs stood at EUR 9 612759 for the 2018 – 2026 peri­od. The MFA co-financ­ing rate is 80%.

The coun­try is fac­ing a com­plex human­i­tar­i­an emer­gency where con­tin­ued vio­lence and inse­cu­ri­ty have been com­pound­ed by endem­ic pover­ty, demo­graph­ic pres­sure and cli­mate shocks. Armed con­flicts in neigh­bour­ing Burk­i­na Faso, Mali and Nige­ria con­tin­ue to aggra­vate insta­bil­i­ty and dis­place­ment in bor­der areas, and sig­nif­i­cant con­ta­gion effects are being felt in the bor­der regions of Niger. In view of the grow­ing human­i­tar­i­an needs in Niger, finan­cial sup­port for human­i­tar­i­an oper­a­tions has increased con­sid­er­ably in recent years, reach­ing EUR 8 728913 in 2022 (com­pared to EUR 2 300000 in 2018), EUR 2 600000 in 2019, EUR 4 021390 in 2020 and EUR 4 448930 in 2021). Human­i­tar­i­an assis­tance in Niger is main­ly imple­ment­ed through assis­tance to the Inter­na­tion­al Com­mit­tee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the World Food Pro­gramme (WFP) and the Unit­ed Nations Agency for Refugees (UNHCR), as well as human­i­tar­i­an NGOs. The strate­gic part­ner­ship frame­works (SPFs) signed for the 2022 – 2025 peri­od with the ICRC, WFP and UNHCR reflect the need to pro­vide more and longer-term sup­port to our human­i­tar­i­an part­ners in Niger. A mul­ti­an­nu­al man­age­ment project was launched in 2021 togeth­er with the Lux­em­bourg Red Cross, which will allow a Red Cross logis­tics cen­tre to be set up in Niamey.