Niger project 683-0240 · 1984–1986 · Institute for Development Anthropology, Inc.

The Niamey Department Development II (NDD II) Project, begun in 1980, was designed to institutionalize a process of rural development by establishing self-managed village organizations to help farm families increase food production on a self-sustaining basis. Major efforts have included establishing training centers to train farm couples in improved production and extension techniques, establishing cooperatives and village-level mutual cooperative groups, training cooperative officers in literacy and arithmetic skills, and promoting cooperation among Government of Niger (GON) district-level technical services in the four project zones. After several years of operation, NDD II's capacity to enhance rural development remains limited. The project's agricultural production technologies only partially address farmers' constraints; their profitability at the farm level is contested and they are insufficiently responsive to local variations in production conditions. For reasons largely beyond the project's control, efforts to integrate GON technical services have had only a modest impact. Overall, a basic change of intervention strategy may be necessary. NDD II offers several general less

Source: DEC abstract, PN-AAL-069 (1985). The source's own text.