Geographical Locations - Niger

• (Statistical) Number of Inhabitants per Doctor: 38,500
• CIA World Factbook : Niger

Organisations and Networks

UN and Multinational

• WHO
  - WHO Country Profile - Niger
  - WHO - Tobacco control: Country Profile - Niger
  - WHO - Environmental Burden of Disease: Country Profile – Niger
  - WHO – Malaria Country Profile – Niger
  - WHO - Global Database on Vitamin A Deficiency - Niger (The)
• Centre d'Information des Nations Unies Pour Le Burkina Faso, Le Mali, Le Niger et Le Tchad

Government

Non-Government

• Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Niger
  Médecins Sans Frontières is the world’s leading independent humanitarian organisation for medical aid. Annually, some 3,000 volunteer doctors, nurses and support staff work in trouble spots around the world helping those living on the edge of human tolerance. This site provides information on MSF's involvement in Niger.

Academic Institutions

National Policy and Related Documents

• Republic of Niger: Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper
  "Niger has suffered a series of social and political upheavals over the last ten years. The decade was marked by a number of political events causing major disruptions: a national constitutional conference, four Republics, two coups, two military regimes, and two armed rebellions in the North and East of the country. These crises have led to political and institutional instability that has severely hindered the implementation of reform and economic recovery measures. They have resulted in a decline in economic output and a deterioration in public finance and in the country's natural resources. They have also been responsible for shortcomings in the implementation of structural reforms and development programs. This situation has contributed to the exacerbation of poverty in urban and rural areas alike." [Office of the Prime Minister, République du Niger and International Monetary Fund, January 2002]

Reports, Guidelines, and Projects

• CCISD - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Santé et Développement : Malaria Project Niger
• Chronic vulnerability in Niger: Implications and lessons learned
  Niger has suffered from chronic malnutrition, rooted in structural vulnerabilities, for several decades. A series of environmental and economic shocks has further exacerbated these vulnerabilities, resulting in high levels of acute malnutrition among children under five. Elevated levels of mortality, particularly among children, are also evident. During 2005, the under-five mortality rate was 4.1 per 10,000 per day, and the crude mortality rate was 1.5 per 10,000 per day. In two regions of the country, under-five mortality rates were above the emergency threshold of two per 10,000 per day. Based on the findings of a recent evaluation, and using UNICEF’s framework for the causes of child malnutrition, this article outlines the structural roots of Niger’s crisis, and provides a brief synopsis of the lessons learned for UNICEF. [author abstract] [Humanitarian Exchange Magazine, No. 34, pp 25-28, June 2006]
• Maintaining high vitamin A supplementation coverage in children: Lessons from Niger
  In 1997, the reduction of child mortality became a policy priority for the Government of Niger because Niger's child mortality rate was the highest in the world. The Ministry of Public Health, Helen Keller International (HKI), and UNICEF spearheaded a coalition-building process linking vitamin A deficiency (VAD) control to national child survival goals. An evidence-based advocacy strategy was developed around the child survival benefits of adequate and sustained VAD control with one unambiguous message: "VAD control can avert over 25 000 child deaths per year." As a result, in 1997 Niger became one of the first countries in Africa to effectively integrate vitamin A supplementation into National Immunization Days (NIDs) for polio eradication. The challenge was then to provide children with a second annual dose of vitamin A. This led in 1999 to the first ever National Micronutrient Days (NMDs) in Africa. NMDs are mobilization campaigns in which caregivers are actively encouraged to take their children for the delivery of vitamin A supplements. Since 1999, the combination of NIDs and NMDs has ensured that over 80% of children 6 to 59 months of age receive two vitamin A doses annually. The success of NIDs/NMDs has relied on five pillars: leadership and ownership by the Ministry of Public Health; district-level planning and implementation; effective training and flexible delivery mechanisms; effective social information, communication, and mobilization; and responsiveness and flexibility of Ministry of Public Health and development partners. This successful approach has been widely disseminated, notably through the West African Nutrition Focal Points Network. [author abstract] [Food and Nutrition Bulletin, vol. 26, no. 1, pp.26-31 (The United Nations University, 2005)]
• Niger: Taking political responsibility for malnutrition
  "No one knows how many people in Niger will suffer from acute malnutrition in 2006. The nutritional crisis may well be less severe this year than last, but equally it may be as bad, or worse. But however many people suffer, it will no longer be possible to refuse to take responsibility, deny that a nutritional emergency exists or pass the buck for and scale of the nutritional crisis. This crisis has been substantially underestimated; we now think that tens of thousands of children suffered from acute malnutrition in previous years. Retrospective examination of the total number of admissions in MSF programmes in Maradi between 2001 and 2005 shows that the nutritional crisis must have been very serious in 2001. Over the last five years, admission figures in nutritional programmes in Maradi region have risen constantly (5,200 in 2002, 6,700 in 2003, 9,700 in 2004). This leads us to conclude that acute malnutrition is hyperendemic, with ‘epidemic peaks’ in certain years. Acute malnutrition can be described as a chronic emergency." [Humanitarian Exchange Magazine, Issue 33, April 2006]
• The 2005 Niger food crisis: A strategic approach to tackling human needs
  The crisis in Niger in 2005 was characterised by slow decision-making and a lack of complementarity between humanitarian and development actors, as agencies debated whether short-term emergency interventions or long-term structural responses were most appropriate. This article describes the nature of the crisis, and argues that, if similar crises are to be prevented in the future, humanitarian and developmental agencies need to harmonise the way they work together to prevent, mitigate and reduce the risks faced by chronically vulnerable populations. [author abstract] [Humanitarian Exchange Magazine, Issue 33, April 2006]

Educational Resources

• CDC - Travel Information : West Africa