FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 26, 2024
Contact: Steve Amodio | info@nuruinternational.org
Niamey, Niger – The Nuru Collective is pleased to announce the establishment of the newest collective member organization, Nuru Niger. This is the Nuru Collective’s sixth country of operation, and this marks Nuru’s fourth country of operation in West Africa.
A locally-owned and locally-led organization, Nuru Niger works in the Dosso Region of Niger, serving marginalized communities of the region. Nuru Niger will strengthen livelihoods through member-owned agribusinesses that support access to veterinary services, markets for selling produce and livestock, and supporting financial and business training. As participants work together to increase their incomes, they begin to overcome extreme poverty and support community prosperity through their livelihoods.
Nuru Niger is delivering proactive solutions to a dynamic mix of challenges present in Dosso, Niger. Working with rural entrepreneurs, both pastoralists and agriculturalists, Nuru Niger aims to support a mix of livelihoods in the region with solutions that bridge across ways of life, ethnic groups, and vast distances. Nuru Niger is building on the Nuru Collective’s 16 years work, bringing a proven toolkit of adaptive solutions to Niger, a country with expanses of semi-arid and arid lands, prone to weather variability and drought. In 2024 alone, the south of Niger experienced both delayed rainfall onset and flooding in a single season.
As a country, Niger has been among the lowest Human Development Index, highest on Multidimensional Poverty, and highest on population growth, with a surging youth population. In the face of these challenges, Nuru is supporting entrepreneurship, as people chart their own paths out of extreme poverty. As conflict and instability are on the rise in Niger, it is now critical that rural populations chart a path toward stability through thriving rural livelihoods, equipping them to make a better life without being forcefully displaced from their communities.
“Rather than originating from a conference room in Washington DC or an air-conditioned office in Niamey [Niger’s capital city], Nuru meets pastoralists by helping their animals, farmers by helping better tend their crops, and rural entrepreneurs by assisting to professionalize and grow their fledgling businesses. A grassroots approach means supporting livelihoods and businesses to help people help themselves.” – Aerie Changala, Nuru CEO
Nuru Niger, in collaboration with research institutions, animal health experts, and other NGOs, began initial engagement activities this year with two cooperatives in two rural communes (rural areas with populations below 10,000) by supporting veterinary services (deworming) delivered to 800 cows. Parasitic worms are common in livestock. Left untreated in cattle, these worms can lead to significant health problems and drastically reduce cows’ weight, which has significant ramifications for the pastoralists’ and their livelihoods. In addition to providing the deworming and corresponding training, Nuru Niger established an interactive database to support pastoralists in monitoring their animals’ health.
During this activity, Nuru Niger also collected detailed information on local pastoral practices to better understand and analyze the needs and challenges that pastoralists are facing, as this will help Nuru Niger co-create and begin implementing activities with these communities in 2025.
“Nuru Niger is a pioneering initiative serving agropastoralists, combining innovative green jobs, productive agro-silvo-pastoral systems, and sustainable solutions to transform the living conditions of rural communities, while cultivating change towards a greener, more promising future. Together with vulnerable communities and agro-pastoral cooperatives in the Dosso region, Nuru Niger is charting a path towards an inclusive and sustainable future, where every stakeholder actively contributes to harmonious and equitable development.” -Hima, Nuru Niger Project Coordinator
Nuru Niger is the second local organization launched by the Nuru Collective this year, as Nuru Ghana was launched earlier this year. The Nuru Collective will continue to scale in 2025 with a mission to build resilience and unlock the economic potential of one million rural entrepreneurs in partnership with local communities at stability tipping points.
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About Nuru:
Nuru is a 501(c)(3) organization and the convener of the Nuru Collective, a network of organizations united by the vision of a world without cycles of unjust poverty, where resilience and hope are cultivated in the most marginalized communities. Nuru Collective member organizations are located in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Kenya, Ghana, Niger, and Nigeria.