Factors Affecting Rural Households’ Resilience to Food Insecurity in Niger

Aboubakr Gambo Boukary, Adama Diaw and Tobias Wünscher
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Aboubakr Gambo Boukary: Faculté des Sciences Economiques et de Gestion, Université Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar, Senegal
Adama Diaw: Unité de Formation et de Recherche en Sciences Economiques et de Gestion, Université Gaston Berger, Saint-Louis, Sénégal
Tobias Wünscher: Zentrum für Entwicklungsforschung (ZEF), University of Bonn, Walter-Flex-Str. 3, 53113 Bonn, Germany

Sustainability, 2016, vol. 8, issue 3, 1-10

Abstract: Niger faces many natural and human constraints explaining the erratic evolution of its agricultural production over time. Unfortunately, this is likely to cause a decline in the food supply. This study attempts to identify factors affecting rural households’ resilience to food insecurity in Niger. For this, we first create a resilience index by using principal component analysis and later apply structural equation modeling to identify its determinants. Data from the 2010 National Survey on Households’ Vulnerability to Food Insecurity done by the National Institute of Statistics is used. The study shows that asset and social safety net indicators are significant and have a positive impact on households’ resilience. Climate change approximated by long-term mean rainfall has a negative and significant effect on households’ resilience. Therefore, to strengthen households’ resilience to food insecurity, there is a need to increase assistance to households through social safety nets and to help them gather more resources in order to acquire more assets. Furthermore, early warning of climatic events could alert households, especially farmers, to be prepared and avoid important losses that they experience anytime an uneven climatic event occurs.

Keywords: resilience; food insecurity; principal component analysis; structural equation modeling; Niger (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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