Niger

Niger is a landlocked country located in west Africa, surrounded by Nigeria, Chad, Libya, Algeria, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Benin. Once a crossroads of the African economy, Niger today sits at the absolute bottom of the United Nations Development Programme Human Poverty Index Scale.

The total population is 12.53 million, growing at 2.92 percent annually. The birth rate is 50.73 per 1,000 and the death rate is 20.91 per 1,000. Only 23 percent of the population is urbanized, although the annual rate of urban growth is currently 5.8 percent.

Poverty is almost total. The economy is based largely on uranium exports, but world demand for uranium is low. Most Nigerois are subsistence farmers, getting by on a per capita income of $260 a year. More than 60 percent of the population live on less than $1 a day.

Niger is chiefly desert, and suffers from recurrent droughts, overgrazing, soil erosion, deforestation, desertification, and loss of biodiversity from wildlife poaching. Recent droughts have led to food shortages for 2.5 million Nigerois. In 2006, humanitarian groups noted a deepening food crisis within the country, with 62,000 cases of moderate malnutrition and over 7,000 cases of severe malnutrition identified before the middle of the year.

Life expectancy at birth is 43.8 years for males and 43.73 years for females. Healthy life expectancy is 35.8 years for men and 35.2 years for women. Infant mortality is 154 deaths per 1,000 births. Mortality for children aged 1–5 is 259 deaths per 1,000. Maternal mortality is among the world's highest, with 1,600 deaths per 100,000. The average Nigerois woman has 7.46 children in her lifetime, and the lifetime chance of dying in childbirth is one in seven. Only 16 percent have a trained attendant present at birth.

A high incidence of obstetric fistula is a by-prod-uct of early and frequent childbirth. Obstetric fistula is a tear in the birth canal, which, left unrepaired, can [Page 1241]lead to urinary or fecal incontinence, often leading to abandonment or shunning by the community. More than 200,000 Nigerois women are believed to suffer from this injury, but there are only six doctors in the country qualified to perform corrective surgery.

Young children in Niger have a high mortality rate, mostly from acute respiratory infection, malaria, diarrhea, and accidents such as burns (95 percent of the country relies on wood- or coal-burning stoves for cooking). However, an active immunization has brought at least one disease—measles—under control, dropping from 50,000 cases a year to just over 2,000 cases in 2005.

If they survive childhood, few children have the opportunity for schooling; literacy rates are 20 percent among males and 9 percent among females. About 66 percent of Nigerois children between the ages of 5 to 14 work. In rural areas, 86 percent of girls marry before the age of 18. Low life expectancy leaves many children without parents early in life, and there are currently about 680,000 orphans under the age of 17.

Sanitation is limited, with 46 percent having access to clean water and 12 percent with sanitary facilities. Prevalence of diarrhea, hepatitis A, typhoid, and meningitis is high. There are about 850,000 cases of malaria each year. Cholera is common in the south, particularly in winter, with about 83 percent of the population at risk.

...