Natural resources management and program food aid in Niger : an initial analysis of linkages

This study examines such linkages in Niger, and also assesses whether food aid has come to play a causal role in inducing people to remain on marginal lands. The study focuses on Food for Work (FFW), which has been used extensively throughout Niger for 20 years or more as a means to achieve natural resource objectives, primarily the rehabilitation of degraded lands. The typical FFW/NRM model is one of workers constructing rock walls or digging infiltration trenches. The majority of the workers are women, although children too take an active part in carrying out the arduous work requirements. A day"s work yields a day"s ration, i.e., enough cereal and other foods to feed five people for a day. USAID, both directly and through the World Food Program, is the major donor. Most FFW projects are performed on common lands. Plans to put rehabilitated sites back into agricultural production are fraught with difficulties, and it appears that FFW"s rehabilitation achievements will be transitory at best. Moreover, the activities are adding to tensions between agriculture and pastoralism in many areas. And the cost is high: although the annual FFW/NRM expenditures are equivalent to approximately 50% of direct NRM investments, the total area treated annually (10,000-15,000 ha) cannot begin to satisfy the need. The average treatment cost per ha (even without counting food shipping and handling) is almost $500. Of even more concern are the unfortunate precedents being established that will affect the way NRM activities are undertaken in the future. These include: high investment costs on marginal lands; the notion that soil and water conservation means jobs; little effort at real participation; the inequities of the gang labor approach; and the belief that land rehabilitation is the purview of the state. The FFW projects seem like archaic throwbacks to the early 1980"s when the mania for tree planting was seen as the solution to the problem of desertification. Few FFW projects have experimented with alternatives to food aid or other approaches that might enhance the participation of workers. Local staff are inhibited from doing so because of the demanding quantitative targets they must meet for land treated and food delivered, Working in this context, staff easily lose sight of workers as participants in development -- they become instead impediments to getting the job done. These subtle mindsets have important implications for the Government of Niger"s new "Principes Directeurs" -- its plan to promote participatory development and reduce the role of the State. Given such problems, urgent attention needs to be given to the links between food aid, development, and NRM in Niger, including the issue of benefit sustainability. The report concludes by making some suggestions for actions by USAID and WFP.