Niger

Meta-Evaluation report on Social norms, performance and prediction of MMD/VSLA achievements in Niger

Niger has developed a legal and institutional framework to fight against discrimination based on gender, age, ethnic group and other factors by 2027. This strategy was developed in a context where all gender indicators are well below the sub-regional average. This strategy is complemented by the efforts of development partners, including CARE International in Niger. In its vision 2030, CARE International places gender equality at the center of its organizing principle. Promoting gender equality and social justice are political goals, which require speaking the truth to public and private actors and standing in solidarity with those who seek to challenge the status quo and the unjust distribution of rights, power and resources. Thus, since 1991, CARE has initiated in a co-learning approach through the MMD (Mata Masu Dubara) model for women empowerment and poverty reduction. Due to its widespread success, the approach became a gateway for most of CARE's and other development partners' activities and has expanded to other sectors of socio-economic development, politics and women's empowerment in Niger. Many studies and evaluations of the approach have been conducted and the results generated are diverse and rich in lessons learned. This report aims to document the rigorous effects/impacts of the MMD approach on the resilience of individuals, groups and institutions at all scales, while also identifying relevant areas where further field-level research is needed. The methodological approach is based first on a meta-evaluation of relevant documents and a complementary data collection using the outcome harvesting approach. Four major current themes were addressed. They are: women's voice and leadership, men's commitment to reducing gender inequality, climate justice, social and economic justice for women. Read More...

IMPACT OF SANCTIONS ON FOOD SECURITY AND LIVELIHOODS IN NIGER Rapid Analysis Results in Tillabéry

The humanitarian situation in Niger was already urgent prior to the July 2023 political crisis and the imposition of sanctions by the international community. 4.3 million people, approximately 17% of Niger’s population, are in need of humanitarian assistance and 3.3 million people are projected to be experiencing crisis or worse levels of acute food insecurity. CARE recently conducted focus group discussions (FGD) in Tillabéry to determine how the crisis has affected food prices, livelihoods, and coping strategies for communities. Eight sex-disaggregated FGDs with 64 participants were completed at the end of August 2023 to analyze crisis impacts, especially for the most vulnerable, and to inform age, gender and disability-responsive humanitarian response in Niger.
ANALYSIS OF THE IMPACT OF SANCTIONS ON FOOD SECURITY AND LIVELIHOODS:
Women and men reported facing challenges in sustaining their eating habits in the months and weeks to come, with women and girls reporting more difficulty maintaining current consumption patterns. 75% of the women’s FGDs reported that they would not be able to sustain current eating habits at all and only one all-women’s group estimated their normal food consumption to continue for only 2 weeks. All 4 men’s groups reported that they would all be able to maintain current eating habits, but only for approximately 30-90 days beyond survey time.
RISING FOOD PRICES: ⅔ of participants attributed the rise in food prices to the political crisis and subsequently imposed sanctions. Maize and rice, staple items in most household diets, are reported to have increased by 75% and 28% respectively one month after the crisis. Read More...

Inspiring Married Adolescent Girls to Imagine New Empowered Futures (IMAGINE)

Each year around the world, almost 13 million girls under the age of 20 give birth, nearly 1 million of whom are younger than 15 (1). Child marriage is a strong indicator of early birth; 90% of adolescent pregnancies in the developing world are to girls who are already married; and married adolescents are more likely to experience frequent and early pregnancies than their unmarried peers (2, 3). Adolescent girls who undergo early marriage (often defined as prior to age 18) and subsequent rapid birth are more likely to experience a host of negative physical, mental and economic outcomes, including complications during pregnancy and delivery, higher rates of maternal mortality, and poor educational and economic outcomes for both themselves and their children (2-5). Read More...

COVID-19 & Women: Saving for Resilience

The COVID-19 pandemic has not had an equal impact on women and men. Through our data we are seeing a significant increase for women in caregiving duties, household chores and gender-based violence, as well as a devastating and worsening impact on livelihood for everyone. Despite this, small glimmers of hope are where women from VSLAs are increasingly taking on leadership roles within their communities and men are beginning to engage more in household chores.

The Women (in VSLAs) Respond data includes the voices of 4,185 Village Savings & Loan Association (VSLA) members (3,266 women and girls) in Burundi, Ethiopia, Mali, Nigeria, Niger, and Uganda. This initiative sought to assess how VSLA members, both as individuals and groups, are affected by the pandemic
and how they responded and adapted to cope with the crisis. The data specifically looks at the impact on individuals and their needs, as well as how groups
have been affected, and how they have adapted. Read More...

WOMEN LEAD IN EMERGENCIES Global Learning Evaluation Report

CARE’s Women Lead in Emergencies (Women Lead) model has been developed to operationalise CARE’s commitment to women’s leadership as one of our four focal areas for Gender in Emergencies.1 Women Lead supports women within communities at the frontline of conflict, natural and climate-related hazards, pandemics and other crises to claim their right to a say over the issues that affect them, and to participate in emergency preparedness, response and recovery.
The Women Lead model looks to address fundamental gaps in humanitarian response that result in the exclusion of women from meaningful participation and leadership in the decisions that affect their lives.

Since 2018, CARE has piloted Women Lead in 15 locations in Colombia, Mali, Niger, the Philippines, Tonga and Uganda. In 2020, Women Lead worked directly with 804 women’s groups. Through piloting this approach in diverse locations and within different types of humanitarian crisis, Women Lead has sought to understand challenges, barriers and enablers regarding this kind of programming in different contexts.
Women’s confidence, knowledge and self-efficacy: The evaluation identifies considerable qualitative evidence of increases in confidence, knowledge and capacities. Participants identified the Women Lead model as being relevant to their needs and accessible to them. We can see evidence of women identifying Women Lead as an important enabler of collective action – supporting women to raise their voice, advocate for their needs and engage more effectively with stakeholders. Quantitative surveys support these findings. In Niger, 88% of Women Lead participants feel confident in their knowledge of their rights compared with 58% of non-participants. In Uganda, 58% of Women Lead participants reported ‘confidence in accessing services’ compared with 40% of non-participant women who said the same.
2. Women’s presence and meaningful participation in decision-making: The evaluation finds that Women Lead increases women’s presence, regularity of attendance, and meaningful and effective participation in decision-making community settings. In Niger, 91% of women who participated in Women Lead had attended formal community meetings and almost 60% said they had attended these meetings regularly compared with only 34% of non-Women Lead participants. This had occurred despite men in the community previously challenging women’s presence at these meetings. The Women Lead model appears to normalise women’s presence in decision-making spaces, and we see some evidence of women forming their own decision-making forums and creating opportunities for themselves to make decisions, take action or hold leaders to account. In Uganda, the South Sudanese Refugee Women’s Association has formally registered to become the first recognised women's community-based organisation in Omugo settlement. We also see the incorporation of Women Lead groups in Colombia, where groups have formally registered and started to offer services to other women.
3. Women’s informal and formal leadership: We see strong evidence of women feeling empowered to take up leadership positions within their community, both formally and informally. In Niger, women are significantly more likely to be leaders in their communities than non-participants (31% of Women Lead participants compared with 9% of non-participants). In Uganda, 22% of Women Lead participants hold leadership positions in their communities compared with 14% of non-participants. In Colombia, for which we have pre- and post-comparison data available for this indicator, before Women Lead 21% of members held leadership positions within their community. This had increased to 40% by the time of this evaluation. However, there is scope to enhance this work further and for there to be more consistent promotion of women’s leadership through work around political representation, leadership style and horizontal/inclusive decision-making processes.
September 2022 – Global Evaluation Report vii
4. Women take collective action: The Women Lead approach both helps empower women and serves to address complex barriers to their meaningful participation. Women Lead action plans are a useful tool to mobilise women for collective action to advocate for women’s needs and wants, organise peer support and solidarity activities, and improve their communities by engaging power-holders. Action has also frequently been taken to tackle the preconditions for participation and, in the action plans available for analysis, 42% of actions related to livelihood and income generation. This highlights the importance of women being free to prioritise according to their needs, to ensure they can tackle the preconditions of participation where necessary. We can also see clear qualitative evidence of women taking collective action to make change within their communities. This includes:
• Influencing humanitarian actors and local authorities to address the needs of women and the community: In Uganda, group members successfully advocated for humanitarian response actors to move the food distribution site closer.
• Advocating to address an injustice: In Niger, women had difficulty accessing maternity services owing to high costs. The Women Lead groups advocated to the district medical officer and the head of the hospital – and achieved a considerable reduction in the cost of accessing hospital services.
• Connecting and complementing community actors: In Uganda, Women Lead groups took a lead in addressing community tensions. For instance, when there were tensions around access to land and firewood, women worked with leaders from different communities to put in place agreements on the use of natural resources.
• Direct delivery and problem-solving: We see examples of women working to respond directly to the needs of their peers. In the Read More...

Baseline Study of the Resilience Food Security Activities (RFSAs) in Niger

This report is a baseline study of three Resilience Food Security Activities (RFSAs) funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (legacy Office of Food for Peace [FFP] in Niger. Part of the Resilience in the Sahel-Enhanced (RISE) initiative, the RFSAs in Niger are: Girma in the Zinder region, implemented by Catholic Relief Services; Hamzari in the Maradi region, implemented by CARE; and Wadata in the Zinder region, implemented by Save the Children. The RFSAs aim to address critical challenges in food security, nutrition, and poverty, and to improve the resilience of households and communities. The baseline study included a representative population-based survey (PBS) of 2,325 households (775 households per RFSA area). Data collection was scheduled for May–April 2020 but due to the COVID-19 pandemic fieldwork was suspended until local regulations and conditions indicated that face-to-face interviewing could safely resume with COVID-19 mitigation procedures in place. The survey was conducted in September 2020 and ended at the start of the harvest period in October 2020. The sample was selected using a multi-stage clustered sampling design to provide a statistically representative sample of the three RFSA areas. The questionnaire was streamlined from the standard FFP questionnaire for a non-permissive environment. Estimates of impact-level indicators pertaining to poverty and anthropometry were expected to be derived from the RISE II baseline survey, scheduled to take place a few months after the RFSA baseline survey. Read More...

Climate Learning and Advocacy for Resilience (CLAR) Programme

Climate Learning and Advocacy for Resilience (CLAR) was a CARE Denmark global programme that during the years 2018-2021 provided technical support to CARE country programmes. The overall objective of CLAR was “Adaptive capacity and resilience of vulnerable communities to climate change impacts, risks and uncertainties has increased.” The programme had three interrelated specific objectives, focusing on (1) demonstrating good practice, innovation and impact in climate resilience, and generating new evidence and learning, (2) improving capacity and influence among CSOs and networks on global and national policies, plans and projects on climate change adaptation and finance, and (3) strengthening of climate knowledge brokering for multi-stakeholder, cross-discipline and South-South learning and coordination.
The intention with CLAR was to link practical approaches and outcomes in climate change adaptation work with influencing policy and planning processes, in particular national adaptation plans (NAPs) and finance. CLAR was to add value to CARE country programmes through the provision of technical support for integration of climate change adaptation implementation as well as cross-country learning and knowledge sharing. CLAR targeted both local, national, and global policy spaces to promote pro-poor, equitable and effective adaptation policies, and mechanisms. Through the Southern Voices on Adaptation (SVA) advocacy community of practice, CLAR supported the sharing of experiences and best practices in different contexts on how to influence adaptation policies and adaptation finance. Read More...

Gender analysis on sexual and reproductive health Niger – Maradi

L’objectif de cette analyse est de donner des recommandations pour la conception des activités du projet afin de garantir que l’intervention s’inscrive dans le «Do no harm» (Ne pas causer des préjudices), et prenne en compte les raisons et les influences les plus profondes sur les comportements et les choix des personnes.
Le consortium en charge du projet représente un partenariat pionnier qui testera des approches innovantes, durables et évolutives pour atteindre certains des groupes les plus marginalisés du monde avec des services complets relatifs à la santé et aux droits sexuels et reproductifs (SDSR). Face aux chocs permanents auxquels sont confrontés les groupes vulnérables dans les milieux fragiles et affectés par le changement climatique, cette approche globale du projet ASPIRE est fondée sur un cadre de résilience. Alors que le monde en développement est de plus en plus touché par le changement climatique et les crises humanitaires, le renforcement de la résilience devient une priorité essentielle si l’on veut permettre aux groupes vulnérables de s'adapter et de mener une vie saine et épanouie, dont l'accès à des services de santé sexuelle et reproductive (SSR) de qualité est une composante essentielle. Read More...

Analyse du genre, avec un focus en particulier sur les violences basées sur le genre: Diffa, Niger

La présente étude genre mettant un focus particulier sur les Violences Basées sur le Genre (VBG) s’inscrit dans la mise en œuvre du projet bilatéral MARTAWA ZUROMAYE au Niger et au Nigeria: “ visant à renforcer les efforts centrés sur les survivants et informer pour prévenir et répondre , aux Violences Basées sur le Genre (VBG), en particulier les Mutilations Génitales Féminines et ou l’Excision (MFG/E) et le mariage d’enfant et ou forcé (MEF) dans les communautés touchées par les conflits et l’extrémisme violent dans l’Est du Niger et le nord e du Nigeria».
L’étude a combiné la méthode quantitative, probabiliste auprès des ménages à celle non probabiliste et qualitative à travers les focus groupes et des entretiens auprès des informateurs clés (chef de villages et ou quartiers, leaders d’associations de femmes, et jeunes, leaders religieux, leaders d’associations de professionnels, services techniques impliqués dans la mise en œuvre de la Politique Nationale Genre du Niger, etc.). La combinaison de ces deux approches a permis de mesurer l’ampleur du phénomène et d’en déterminer des causes et conséquences sous-jacentes.
Les résultats de l’étude révèlent que le phénomène des VBG à l’instar de toutes les régions du Niger est une réalité dans la région de Diffa et particulièrement dans les six communes d’intervention du projet. La particularité de cette région est liée à la crise humanitaire en cours qui a aggravé certaines violences et fragiliser davantage les mécanismes de réponses existants.
Les réponses à la question qui porte sur les VBG montrent que la résolution de ces cas est plus du ressort des mécanismes communautaires traditionnels ou familiaux que du système de protection formel.
Read More...

PROMEESSIII

L’intervention du PROMEESS III est soutenue par l'analyse genre détaillée en tenant compte des spécificités des participants en termes des différents besoins, rôles, relations, risques de protection dynamiques de pouvoir entre les femmes/hommes/filles/garçons. Read More...

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