PRESENCES: Natural resource management and governance, climate-resilient livelihoods and improved climate information services

Countries of Operation: Niger

The Projet de Résilience face aux Chocs Environnementaux et Sociaux au Niger (PRESENCES) was implemented from January 2015 to December 2017 and covered 12 rural communes of the Tillabéry region in Niger. The project’s aim was to increase anticipation, absorptive and adaptive capacities of poor and vulnerable women and men against climate extremes and disasters through three main areas:

Improved relevance, access to and use of climate information services, planning and risk management for climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction.

Sustainable and climate-resilient livelihood options for poor and vulnerable women and men.

Governance systems and structures at local, national and regional levels that support equitable, sustainable and climate-resilient management of natural resources.

Main achievements to date

Outputs:

220, 186 people supported to cope against climate shocks and extremes
29,739 people with improved livelihoods through small ruminant activities “Habanaye”, improved seeds distribution associated with climate smart technologies, non-timber forest products processing and market gardening.
70 local institutions involved in PRESENCES activities
45 effective partnerships developed with 3 NGOs, 12 communes, 12 radio broadcasters; 5 networks (including 2 parliamentarian and 3 community-level networks)
10 capacity building/training activities on early warning systems for vulnerability monitoring involving 5 institutions.
18 local government strategies incorporating climate change adaptation and risk reduction measures, supported by PRESENCES

Outcomes:

Improved food security:
- 33% reduction of the average Coping Strategy Index (CSI)[1] score for assets and livelihoods
- 80% decrease of the CSI score of food insecurity amongst the surveyed households in the project area.
- The median value of number of months of food security steadily increased from a value of 2.9 months in 2015 to 4.7 months in 2017, despite seasonality factors.
Increased access to climate information services:
- People are more likely to follow climate information after the project and 50% of people found climate information to be very relevant and are following it.
Increased access and use of credit mechanisms:
- Where Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs), Warrantage and Cereal Banks were reinforced by the project, target communities were borrowing and re-investing in increased production to raise their incomes.
- At the household level an increase in savings of 60% was observed in targeted areas
- Credit systems provided an avenue to accelerate income growth.
Supported climate information governance systems from the village to commune level.

Next steps

CARE will continue to use the programming lessons from PRESENCES to inform new projects CARE delivers in Niger and the Sahel. Many of these approaches CARE implements in other regions where we are helping poor women, households, communities and institutions to build resilience to climate extremes and disasters. We have particularly seen through PRESENCES the effectiveness of savings and credit systems and climate information services in helping vulnerable people.

[1] The CSI is a tool that allows measuring the frequency and severity of coping strategies when people cannot access enough food, converted into a single index. The more lower/reduces the CSI is, the more food secure a household is.