Country profilesNiger

Humanitarian profile

Niger, part of the semi-arid Sahel region prone to droughts, has suffered chronic food shortages since the early 1970s. The 2005 food crisis killed thousands and was followed by another major food emergency in 2010. Niger is one of the world’s poorest countries, with two-thirds of the population surviving on less than $1 a day. It is heavily dependent on foreign aid. By far the biggest donor to Niger is the European Union. 

Country snapshot

Niger has not traditionally been of strategic importance, except to France, which has long mined uranium there. But with renewed interest in the radioactive heavy metal, other investors are hoping to move in.

Former President Mamadou Tandja also signed a multi-billion dollar oil deal with China.

Covered mainly by the Sahara in West Africa, Niger is a poor, vast, landlocked country that comes at the very bottom of the world's human development league, with high infant mortality, malnutrition, disease and low levels of education.

Numerous military coups - the most recent in 2010 - characterise the country's unstable politics.

Niger has good ties with the West, particularly France whose influence is strong, and with the Islamic world. It is close to Libya.

Government

Niger has a history of military coups, with the latest taking place in February 2010. Army squadron leader Salou Djibo ousted Mamadou Tandja after the former president dissolved parliament and the constitutional court in an attempt to extend his term for three more years, and then stand for a third term.

The scheduled 2009 presidential election postponed by Tandja would have marked the first democratic transition of power from one president to another.

The junta promised to return Niger to democracy, installing an interim government led by a civilian prime minister, Mahamadou Danda, and vowing not to stand in future elections.

Tandja, a former army officer himself, had ruled for more than a decade after winning elections twice. He stayed on after his second term expired in December 2009.

He amended the constitution, changing the president's term from five years to eight and making the presidency all-powerful, taking over the role of head of government from the prime minister.

The National Assembly has 143 seats - 113 elected every five years and 30 chosen by the president. After the most recent ballot in 2009, the dominant party was Tandja's National Movement for a Developing Society (MNSD), with 76 seats. The Senate has 60 members, one third chosen by the president.

Economy

Niger is desperately poor. It has some of the world's biggest deposits of uranium - an abundant source of nuclear energy - but 90 percent of people live off subsistence farming in the southern savannah.

Drought, encroaching Sahara sands and locust plagues make existence precarious in one of the planet's hottest countries. Yet Niger has the world's third fastest-growing population.

Erratic rainfall has led to recurring food crises. Tandja delayed calling for outside help during a hunger emergency in 2005, but the military junta was quick to recognise the extent of the problem in 2010, when a government survey estimated some 7.8 million people, or nearly 60 percent of the population, would go hungry.

Niger ranked bottom in the U.N.'s Human Development Index for 2009, which uses national statistics from 2007 for life expectancy, education and GDP to compare 182 countries. A few states such as Iraq, Somalia and North Korea do not provide enough data to be included.

Figures tell Niger's story of poverty. The population of 15 million is growing at 3.7 percent a year. Half of Nigeriens are under 15. The fertility rate of nearly eight births per woman is among the highest in the world.

For every 1,000 live births, 117 die in infancy. Mortality in children under five is higher than in the rest of the region due to poor healthcare and widespread malnutrition. Millet provides three quarters of total calories consumed.

Nigeriens spend an average of four years at school and only a quarter can read. The average income is less than one dollar a day, with two thirds of the population living below the poverty line.

Foreign aid makes up nearly half the budget of a government that provides only minimal services.

Foreign exchange comes mainly from uranium, livestock, onions and gold exports. Uranium prices have fluctuated wildly. Niger shares the euro-pegged West African franc with neighbouring countries.

French nuclear power company AREVA controls the two national mining companies. It runs Niger's only two uranium mines and is developing a huge new mine due to open in 2012.

Exploration for oil is under way, with the rights held by the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC).

Niger's wildlife - elephants, hippopotamuses, giraffes and lions - are threatened by poaching and habitat destruction.

History

Niger, named after its main river, was a traditional transit route from the north to sub-Saharan Africa.

Contact with Europeans came in the 19th century when the first explorers, notably Britain's Mungo Park and Heinrich Barth of Germany, sought out the mouth of the Niger River.

The region came under French rule in the late 19th century and Niger gained independence in 1960. From 1968, Niger suffered a five-year drought, which devastated livestock and crops.

Three decades of military and one-party rule followed independence, until the end of the Cold War encouraged public pressure for free elections.

A democratic government took power in 1993 but was paralysed by political factionalism and then toppled by a fresh coup in 1996 led by a colonel, Ibrahim Bare.

He was killed in a counter-coup three years later, and military officers quickly restored democracy.

Elections in 1999 brought to power a former army officer, Mamadou Tandja, who had in 1974 been part of a coup that overthrew the first elected president, Hamani Diori.

He won praise for restoring relative stability and economic growth and was re-elected in 2004 for a second and - according to the constitution - final term.

But the lure of power proved too great and he started on a plan to change the law so he could stand again. He argued he needed to complete multi-billion-dollar oil, mining and infrastructure projects. But critics accused his family and close circles of rampant corruption.

Thwarted by the Constitutional Court, he disbanded it along with parliament, and turned to rule by emergency decree, after which he won a referendum in 2009 on changing the constitution.

The opposition said the vote was fixed and foreign governments expressed concern. A military coup toppled Tandja in 2010.

The new leaders, the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy, promised to follow through on their name. The African Union expelled Niger but other international condemnation was subdued.

Niger is a mainly Muslim country whose biggest ethnic group is the southern-based Hausa people. The traditionally nomadic Tuaregs in the north have long complained of marginalisation. They want more autonomy and a greater share of uranium earnings.

Tuareg rebels mounted an insurgency in 2007. The Niger Movement for Justice (MNJ) complained that a 1995 peace deal ending a previous rebellion was never fully implemented. In 2009, the MNJ agreed to a ceasefire at talks with the government.

In recent years there have been a string of attacks on foreign nationals in the vast northern desert region, where an array of bandits, smugglers, former rebels and groups linked to al Qaeda operate.

Western countries say that unless decisive action is taken, al Qaeda insurgents could turn the Sahara into a safe haven along the lines of Somalia or Yemen.

In an effort to improve the disjointed response to the threat, Niger, Mali, Algeria and Mauritania opened a joint military headquarters in 2010 in southern Algeria.

Legal snapshot

Niger's legal system is based on French civil law system and customary law. There are four higher courts: the Court of Appeals, Supreme Court, High Court of Justice and Constitutional Court.

The country has not accepted compulsory International Court of Justice jurisdiction.

In recent years, Niger has steadily moved up the rankings in Transparency International's annual index measuring perceived levels of public-sector corruption, suggesting the authorities are cleaning up their act.

The health and education ministers were sacked in 2006 after aid donors complained of government corruption. And in 2008, police arrested a former prime minister, Hama Amadou, on charges of embezzling state funds.

Niger is a source, transit and destination country for children and women trafficked for forced labour and sex.

It banned the centuries-old practice of descent-based slavery in 2003, but anti-slavery organisations say thousands of people still live in subjugation.