Fostering food purchase programmes in widespread poverty contexts : targeting smallholders within the PAA Africa Programme in Niger

With a surface area of 1,267,000 square kilometres, Niger is a vast Sahelian country located in the south of the Sahara Desert, which covers over two thirds of its land. In 2015, it had an estimated population of 17 million inhabitants and a particularly high growth rate of 3.3 per cent. It is one of the poorest countries in the world, ranked 187th in the 2014 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Index (FAO 2015). Its main economic activity is agriculture, including growing crops and raising livestock, with over 80 per cent of the population working in this sector. In Niger, agriculture is organised in the form of subsistence family farming and depends very much on climate variations, which result in food and fodder production deficits and social crises.