OIC helps Niger overcome its food shortage crisis

On his last trip as Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu traveled to Niger last week to inaugurate crucial humanitarian and developmental projects there. Located in West Africa, the landlocked country has suffered from severe drought in 2005 that resulted in food shortage and famine.
At the request of Niger to explore ways of mobilizing the Muslim world to help the people of Niger, the OIC organized its first donors’ conference in Doha, Qatar, in 2007 to promote food self-sufficiency in Niger. The conference had outstanding results where OIC member states and other participants pledged $370 million.
In his speech at the inaugural session of the conference, Ihsanoglu said: “This conference is the starting point of the OIC’s humanitarian action as recommended by the OIC 10-Year Program of Action.”
The 10-Year Program of Action was adopted in Makkah in 2005 at the start of Ihsanoglu’s term. As such, his visit to Niger during his last month in office is like witnessing what he has harvested, and his joy and pride was palpable.
Since 2007, the OIC implemented a number of developmental projects in Niger to provide drinking water, irrigation for 240 hectares and sources of food and income for many villages. It opened a humanitarian office in Niamey to follow up on the projects.
Visible from the plane, vast arid land expands in the horizon with little greenery except on the banks of the River Niger. Arriving in the capital Niamey on Dec. 23, 2013, Ihsanoglu and his delegation rode in SUVs for several kilometers along unpaved dusty and bumpy roads to villages that seem to have fallen off the transcripts of time.
Small clay homes and wooden cone-shaped huts dot the road while skinny goats and cows graze the dry bushes and trees. The River Niger, which is supposed to be one of the biggest rivers in Africa, is far below its water level, but when it rains floods cause human loss and damage.
Ihsanoglu toured on foot some of the villages where the OIC projects were implemented and officially inaugurated several of them. The villagers, young and old, women, men and children greeted him with joy, clapping and singing and eager to shake hands with him.
The OIC completed the third stage of projects consisting of 21 wells, 11 agricultural farms and 10 boreholes, which benefited tens of thousands of people. It also completed five fish farming projects in five villages. These simple projects completely transformed the lives of the people in these villages and neighboring villages who also come for the water and buy food and animal stock.
During his meeting with President Issoufou Mahamadou, the secretary-general urged him to follow up on the outcome of the OIC donors’ conference, which has been stalled due to some incidents of instability in the country.