Niger

The pro­grammes under ICP IV in the areas of basic social ser­vices (water and san­i­ta­tion, hous­ing, nutri­tion, basic edu­ca­tion), voca­tion­al train­ing and employ­ment, finance and food secu­ri­ty start­ed as planned and were launched in Niamey on 3 Feb­ru­ary 2023 in the pres­ence of the Direc­tor for Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion and Human­i­tar­i­an Affairs. A new logis­tics cen­tre for the Nige­rien Red Cross, with a bud­get of EUR 4.5 mil­lion over three years (2023−2025), illus­trates the ICP’s nexus between human­i­tar­i­an action and devel­op­ment. Lux­em­bourg is thus con­tin­u­ing to work to help dis­placed, refugee and returned com­mu­ni­ties as well as vul­ner­a­ble hosts.

The 15^th part­ner­ship com­mit­tee meet­ing with Niger was held on 4 July 2023 in Lux­em­bourg, just before the coup d’état. Franz Fay­ot, Min­is­ter for Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion and Human­i­tar­i­an Affairs, and Has­sou­mi Mas­soudou, Min­is­ter of For­eign Affairs and Coop­er­a­tion, car­ried out an in-depth review of the progress of ICP IV pro­grammes and dis­cussed the broad strate­gic out­lines for coop­er­a­tion between the two coun­tries in the com­ing years. It was empha­sised that, with a bud­get of EUR 148.6 mil­lion for the 2022 – 2026 peri­od, Niger was at the time the top ben­e­fi­cia­ry from among Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment Cooperation’s part­ner coun­tries. At the meet­ing, the two min­is­ters signed an amend­ment to the mem­o­ran­dum of under­stand­ing on sup­port for the Nation­al Sys­tem for the Pre­ven­tion and Man­age­ment of Food Crises (DNPG­CA), increas­ing Luxembourg’s sup­port to EUR 6.5 mil­lion for the 2022 – 2026 financ­ing peri­od, in response to the severe nutri­tion and food cri­sis affect­ing the entire Sahel.

The coup d’état of 26 July 2023 had major impli­ca­tions for devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion activ­i­ties in Niger. The bilat­er­al pro­grammes imple­ment­ed by LuxDev and the NGO ADA were sus­pend­ed due to the uncon­sti­tu­tion­al change in gov­ern­ment. That sus­pen­sion result­ed in the ces­sa­tion of pay­ments of new funds, the with­draw­al of tech­ni­cal assis­tance made avail­able to cen­tral and decen­tralised author­i­ties, and the sus­pen­sion of activ­i­ties imple­ment­ed in all pro­grammes. In order to reduce fidu­cia­ry risks, a mon­i­tor­ing sys­tem has been set up by LuxDev.

Mul­ti­lat­er­al, human­i­tar­i­an and civ­il soci­ety assis­tance pro­grammes have con­tin­ued to be imple­ment­ed, but under increas­ing­ly com­plex con­di­tions. Mul­ti­lat­er­al­ly, sup­port to the World Food Pro­gramme (WFP) to sup­port school can­teens and to the Unit­ed Nations Pop­u­la­tion Fund (UNF­PA) to sup­port repro­duc­tive health and rights con­tin­ued as planned.

In terms of human­i­tar­i­an assis­tance, Lux­em­bourg sup­port­ed projects by inter­na­tion­al, mul­ti­lat­er­al and non-gov­ern­men­tal human­i­tar­i­an actors, with a total finan­cial enve­lope of EUR 7.3 mil­lion in 2023. Fol­low­ing the coup d’état, the sup­ply of human­i­tar­i­an aid has become increas­ing­ly com­plex, due in par­tic­u­lar to sanc­tions imposed on Niger by ECOW­AS, but also to restric­tions imposed by Niger’s de fac­to authorities.

In 2023, sev­en Lux­em­bour­gish devel­op­ment NGOs worked in Niger in the sec­tors of agri­cul­ture, 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. Despite the coup, the imple­men­ta­tion of their activ­i­ties con­tin­ued in 2023.