Project details

Strategy

The objective of the project is to strengthen national/local institutions and communities’ capacities in adaptation planning and budgeting while using opportunities of water market to advance local adaptation and resilience in Niger. The project will give priority to strengthening the consideration of CCA in the water sector, by improving the coordination in data collection and knowledge management at the national and local level and strengthening the institutional capacities in understanding the dynamics of climate change in the water sector for improved planning and budgeting. Field tested interventions will support this process and the project will introduce adaptive water options such as hybrid solutions for households’ water provision, small farm’s irrigation systems or multifunctional infrastructures at sensitive ponds and koris to protect equipment and farmland from erosion and floods. The project will result in an improved resilience of the targeted communities against the adverse effects of climate change. The project is also expected to have indirect positive impacts on non-targeted communities by spreading adaptation methods throughout the country. At the national level, policy makers’ capacities will be strengthened to incorporate climate risks into planning. This project will be a major contribution to the Niger NAP, in particular in the sector of water resources. The project will work in synergy with the GCF NAP project “Advancing medium and long-term adaptation planning and budgeting in Niger” to support Niger’s NAP process.

The strategy is consistent with the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) Country Programme Outcome 2: “By 2018, supported national, regional and local institutions benefit from disaster risk management, prevention, environmental management, and food security”^[1]. It will enable achievement of Output 2.2: “National, regional, and local institutions have increased capacities to be more resilient to climate change and to manage food insecurity crisis and other natural disasters”^[2].

In addition, the project is aligned with the steps taken by the GoN since the 1990s to deal with the consequences of climate change on its development. In 1996 a large, strong, and sustained institutional framework was set up with the creation of the National Council for Environment and Sustainable Development (CNEDD). Niger also ratified the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1995. The country has since developed a range of strategic documents such as the National Environmental Plan for a Sustainable Development (PNEDD), the National Strategy and Action plan for Climate Change and Variabilities (SNPA/CVC) or the National Strategy and Action Plan for the Management of the Global Environment (SNPA/ANCR). By complying with its commitments to the UNFCCC, via the National Communications – the last one being the Third National Communication (TNC) published in 2016 –, the Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC)^[3] to the 21^st Conference of the Parties (COP-21) and the NAPA^[4], the GoN is aware of the need to integrate climate change in its policies and programmes. The Government therefore already took into account climate change adaptation (CCA) in a number of areas, including in the water sector.

With regards to adaptation priorities, the country also started its National Adaptation Plan (NAP) process in 2014 ^[5], with the assistance of the National Adaptation Plan Global Support Programme (NAP-GSP)^[6] from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and UN Environment. In 2016, a mission was conducted to identify priority interventions to advance the NAP process, including consultations with the Green Climate Fund (GCF) National Designated Authority, i.e. the SE/CNEDD. As a consequence, a GCF project was approved in 2018 for the period 2018-2021 with a budget of US$2,997,282 on “advancing medium and long-term adaptation planning and budgeting in Niger”[7] to serve as co-financing for this project. Its main goals are to compile a NAP and to facilitate its implementation, before putting in place mechanisms to ensure appropriate reporting and monitoring.[8]The long-term goals informing Niger´s adaptation efforts are outlined in the country´s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), submitted in 2016. The NAP process timeline is presented below.

The NAP builds on the 2006 NAPA[9], which defined four priorities related to water resources: Restoring basins for crop irrigation, Diversifying and Intensifying crop irrigation, Water control (surface and ground waters), Watershed protection and rehabilitation of dump-off ponds.

National benefits

The project builds on a relevant national framework of CCA-related policies, defined and implemented through budget allocations. This facilitates the mainstreaming of adaptation at all levels of the country:

• The project will advance the NAP process in the water sector, through the establishment of sectoral institutional mechanism steering the process and liaising with the national level (Output 1.1.), the development of climate-related skills among key staff in national institutions and decision-makers (Output 1.2.), the generation of climate evidence-based to inform adaptation planning in this sector (Output 1.3.), and the development of indicators and markers to facilitate CCA mainstreaming into planning and budgeting.
• The project will complete the NAPA adaptation measures, as well as match orientation of the PRS and SDR priorities.
• National capacities for coordination and climate mainstreaming in planning and budgeting processes, will be improved through capacity building of key personnel from all relevant institutions on climate change, and budget tagging and tracking tools for climate finance. These concerted efforts by the SE/CNEDD, the National Commission for Water and Sanitation (CNEA), and the Ministries of Planning and Finance will contribute to the implementation of progressive procedures and tools that can facilitate CCA integration into budget processes.
• By designing, demonstrating, and disseminating integrated water management techniques aligned with adaptation priorities, the project support the implementation of the PANGIRE , and contributes to strengthen the adaptive capacity of population in line with sectoral objectives.
• The project “Scaling up Community Based Adaptation (CBA)[10] in Niger is an appropriate entry point for integrating climate change into local development plans. Project experiences will help to apply the methodology in revising local drinking water and sanitation plans. In addition, the implementation of NAPA priority intervention in Niger has played a key role in raising awareness of climate change and in enhancing resilience through income generating activities and more resilient agricultural techniques in particular. The project will therefore build on these experiences to sustain their impacts in the long-term and scale-up opportunities in the NAP process.
• The GCF-financed NAP project, will advance medium and long-term adaptation planning and budgeting in Niger. This project will be implemented in close cooperation with the GCF-financed NAP initiative, to avoid duplications and achieve the highest possible impacts for climate change adaptation planning at the national level.

The proposed project will specifically focus on CCA and the water sector. The valorization of water resources offers a specific opportunity to ensure the provision of CCA services at the national level. The sector is recognized and promoted as a key pillar in the overall economic development of the country. Because of the close tie with the GCF- NAP project, the proposed LDCF project will pave the way for the sectoral NAP on water resources management. In addition, by implementing CCA interventions, the proposed project will support the GoN in reaching its development targets and the SDGs.

Local benefits

In the same way that the national government will benefit from significant capacity building, both departmental and municipal authorities will be strengthened in their capacity to incorporate climate risks and opportunities in their planning and budgeting work related to water resources management. As for the local population, the benefits would be plural:

1. Water for agriculture: At the local level, the second component will introduce hybrid solutions that offer practical opportunities to facilitate smallholders' access to alternative sources of irrigation for their high-value vegetable crops through small-scale irrigation schemes. These improved methods will enable the development of a higher quantity but also a better quality in vegetable and crop production. Moreover, irrigation ponds (manual or gravity irrigation) will secure the development of livestock, including dairy production. In addition, access to water will reinforce the resilience of nomad and sedentary livestock by improving the herd’s health, and hence decreasing the vulnerability of breeders.
2. Drinking water: Rural communities will benefit from a better drinking water access. This will improve health and sanitation conditions. Indirectly, with a larger production of vegetables, meat, and milk, the nutritional situation of the population is also expected to improve. When rural communities find a way to build and operate their own water supply systems, they inevitably build multipurpose systems, which combine household drinking water supplies with a variety of productive uses of water. Multi-purpose village water supply systems follow the pattern of diverse productive uses of water already integrated by rural communities into the systems they build for themselves. In addition, the implementation of productivity optimization methods and access to markets adapted to the village context will follow the integration of hybrid systems.
3. Social benefits: The proposed project will impact the social sector as well. In order to ensure the continued existence of the irrigation infrastructures (manual or gravity irrigation), communities must manage it. In order to organize this maintenance, a participatory approach by all the villagers is anticipated, mostly from the youth and women who are generally the most excluded from these maintenance tasks. The idea is to select several young villagers on a voluntary basis to ensure the maintenance of the irrigation ponds. They will be trained to learn relevant skills. Thus, irrigation ponds will produce social benefits in terms of integration and participation of excluded populations (youth and women) in the daily decision-making of the targeted communities, and will generate a positive impact on the rate of employment. As a result, the maintenance of irrigation ponds will further develop the associative life of communities but also political and civil life by implementing an administration board to manage the new infrastructures.
4. In line with the PANGIRE, the proposed project will increase water supply for the seven most vulnerable communities, targeting the villages which have a safe water access ratio that goes below 25%. The beneficiary villages were targeted following this threshold, and by taking into account additional safety and security criteria. They will be reexamined during the project starting phase to ensure the most vulnerable villages are targeted.

Results and partnerships

The objective of the project is to “strengthen national and local institutions and communities’ capacities in adaptation planning and budgeting, while using opportunities of water market to advance local adaptation and resilience in Niger”. This will be done through improved management of water resources, and by mainstreaming water-related climate risks considerations into national and local planning processes. In the long run, targeted local communities in Niger will be more resilient to climate change.

To achieve this objective, the project will build on past and previous projects and programmes and will establishes strong synergies with ongoing adaptation related initiatives (see section IV.3 for more details), in particular the GCF NAP project.

As part of the NAP process, and in addition to ongoing interventions, the project will specifically contribute to CCA planning and budgeting in the water sector, the introduction of climate resilient water resources management techniques and measures, and knowledge management. Interventions are structured around 3 complementary and mutually reinforced components:      

The first component will improve CCA planning by promoting climate change resilient water resources knowledge, management and planning at national and local levels. The second component will use a water sector wide approach to access to adaptation finance at the local level. It will enhance the access to climate resilient water systems in the targeted areas. The third component will foster evidence-based policy decisions.

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