CARE has launched a US $7-million appeal for the emergency response and longer-term recovery. Working closely with the government, U.N. agencies and aid groups, CARE plans to reach approximately 660,000 people in the particularly hard-hit areas of Diffa, Maradi and Tahoua. Immediate activities include cash-based interventions (cash transfers and cash-for-work) to help poor families meet their food requirements throughout the lean season and to purchase seeds for the planting season in June; emergency food distributions, particularly targeting schoolchildren and the most vulnerable; and helping pastoralists protect their livestock by improving water access points, rehabilitating and protecting pasture land, and ensuring access to animal feed.
Media contact:
Melanie Brooks (in Geneva): +41 79 590 30 47, [email protected]
About CARE: Founded in 1945, CARE is one of the world’s largest humanitarian aid agencies, headquartered in Switzerland. In over 70 countries, CARE works with the poorest communities to improve basic health and education, enhance rural livelihoods and food security, increase access to clean water and sanitation, expand economic opportunity, and provide lifesaving assistance after disasters. CARE has worked in Niger since 1974, with programmes in livelihood security, civil society organisation development, governance, gender, food security, health, disaster risk reduction, HIV/AIDS and micro-finance.