Instead of being referred to as the region's granary it is regarded as a chronic famine zone. The challenge facing humanitarian aid workers like myself is how to help people like those living in Olelewa cope with this arid trend. Chief Manou knows very well that it no longer rains as much as it did during his youth, and he pities today's much larger generation, as people barely harvest enough food to get by. The chief and his villagers have limited means of adapting to these drier conditions. CARE works to find out what can be done and shares this knowledge with the villagers, so they are capable of carrying on after the CARE project has ended.
CARE works in Niger to improve the quality of available water supplies.
This means transferring knowledge and investing in human and social capital. It also means doing things without undue reliance on external resources to ensure efforts will be sustainable. The best approach is therefore one that from the very beginning involves participants in the conception, implementation and evaluation of project activities. In this way, they take ownership of the project and have a stake in its success or failure. In the case of Olelewa and surrounding villages, CARE's approach is to show villagers how to map and inventory the natural resources in their region.