Niger, owing to its climatic,institutional, livelihood, economic, and environmentalcontext, is one of the most vulnerable countries of theworld. Poverty is pervasive in Niger and it ranks low onalmost all the human development indicators. Agriculture isthe most important sector of Niger's economy andaccounts for over 40 percent of national gross domesticproduct (GDP) and is the principle source of livelihood forover 80 percent of the country's population. Theperformance of the agricultural sector, however, due to itshigh exposure to risks, is very volatile. Niger hasexperienced multiple shocks, largely induced by agriculturalrisks over the past 30 years, which impose high welfare costin terms of food availability, food affordability, andmalnutrition. It also adversely affects household incomes,performance of the agricultural sector, thegovernment's fiscal balance, and the growth rate ofNiger's economy. Niger is a case of living perpetuallywith risk, thus more emphasis on long-term structuralsolutions, rather than short-term quick fixes, is requiredto improve the resilience of the agricultural sector.Designing and implementing a comprehensive agricultural riskmanagement strategy will require sustained and substantialfinancial investments, shifting the focus from short-termcrisis response to long-term risk management, streamliningdisparate donor investments and isolated interventionstoward the core problem, supporting decentralized community,and farm-level decision making, integrating agriculturalrisk management into the existing development frameworks,prioritizing agricultural risks into government and donorstrategies, and focusing on implementation.
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