Niger

Niger joined the CCAC in 2019 to boost its national efforts to contribute to global goals through actions to reduce short-lived climate pollutants. 

Niger, officially known as the Republic of the Niger, is a landlocked country located in West Africa. The country currently has a population of 24.21 million, with a high rate of demographic growth of 3.87%. Niger is a Sahelian country with three-quarters of its land area situated in the desert, making the country vulnerable to climate risks.  

Niger communicated their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC) in 2016. As AFOLU (Agriculture, Forestry, and Other Land Use) and Energy sectors dominated the country’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, they bear the spotlight in the 2016 INDC’s mitigation measures.  

The agricultural sector consists of both agricultural and livestock sub-sectors. This sector contributes 89% of Niger’s GHG emissions from enteric fermentation, manure management, open burning of crop residues, and rice cultivation. The main mitigation measures in the INDC to strengthen the agriculture sector, ensure food security, and combat poverty include upscaling of good sustainable land management practices to increase the resilience of ecosystems and households while sequestering carbon, and enforcing the sustainable management of forests to reduce deforestation linked GHG emissions. 

Niger’s INDCs address the household energy sector as a sub-sector of the energy sector, which contributes 9% of the country’s GHG emissions. Main mitigation measures in cooking energy include reducing the demand for wood energy by spreading improved cookstove technologies and promoting biogas and biofuels as domestic gas at both industrial and household levels. 

Niger also receives support from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s ‘Integrated Production and Pest Management Programme in Africa’ activities (IPMM) for the government’s 3N Initiative (les Nigériens Nourrissent les Nigériens - Nigeriens Nourish Nigeriens). This initiative aims to strengthen the country's resilience to food and nutrition crises by helping smallholder farmers increase cereal yields, irrigate more land and diversify production systems, among others.