Niger: A Not-So Natural Disaster

Twenty years after the charity concerts for the Sahel Nigerien politicians, institutional donors, aid agencies and humanitarian organisations clashed on the nature and substance of the crisis affecting Niger in 2005. Identifying the causes of, and adequate responses to, the situation also gave rise to profound disagreements. Having set up their most ambitious emergency nutrition programme to date, Médecins Sans Frontières found itself at the forefront of these controversies.

This book, an MSF initiative, is a collection of contributions from researchers, consultants and humanitarian actors. Each contributor gives a different perspective of the Nigerien crisis and discusses what they consider to be the key issues involved. In particular, the authors examine and question the conflict that arose during the summer of 2005 between the 'development' and 'emergency' camps. They also discuss the nature and durability of the changes that occurred in the wake of the crisis, and call for further reflexion on the preconceptions and implicit choices that condition relations of assistance and aid in Africa. One consensus however stands out: the death of tens of thousands of children every year, like the pauperisation and marginalisation of an ever increasing number of Nigeriens, are not the result of natural disasters: still less a fatality.

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