FROM THE FIELD: Niger supporting the most vulnerable, as crises mount

January 24, 2020 by United Nations Leave a Comment

The UN refugee agency has launched cash-for-work programmes which employ youth from host communities in Awaradi, Niger, to make bricks.

UNOCHA/Eve Sabbagh The UN refugee agency has launched cash-for-work programmes which employ youth from host communities in Awaradi, Niger, to make bricks.

This article is brought to you in association with the United Nations.

The number of people requiring humanitarian assistance in Niger, a country which the UN humanitarian agency, OCHA, says is “being assaulted on all fronts”, is expected to increase in 2020. Currently, around 10 per cent of the population of the West African country, around 2.3 million people, requires humanitarian aid to survive. Conflict, climate change and the arrival of refugees from neighboring countries have all combined to drive up the number of people who are not getting enough to eat, in what is already one of the world’s poorest nations. But now, the Nigerien government, with the support of UN agencies, is helping the most vulnerable people. The UN humanitarian agency’s Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Ursula Mueller, recently travelled to Niger to meet some of the those who are benefitting. Read more about their stories here.

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