Ms Assalama Sidi:

I am in a unique position to talk about that because not only am I the regional director but I am also a west African living in Niger. It is a good question. We talk about the hunger season or lean season. Of course, the word "hunger" is stronger. In west African countries, especially in the Sahel area, a food crisis is not something new. For decades, people in west African countries, especially in the Sahel part, lived at least a hunger season. That hunger season, as described by my predecessor, is the time between the last harvest and the new one. This year, the Covid crisis has made both the world and west African countries more fragile and some of the coping mechanisms community members use are no longer available. It could be something as simple as communities gardening or using tree leaves in a positive way.

There are good tree leaves that some communities use to cope before reaching the next harvest season. Due to climate change in the Sahel region, fewer trees are growing and, due to less food growing, many community members are cutting trees and selling them to cope. It is a vicious circle. To be succinct in my answer, we are seeing the lean or hunger season starting earlier and lasting longer.

Regarding the question on gender, this is what we have witnessed for years. Unfortunately, it is growing worse. The conflict situation is making it worse. Climate change is not new in this part of the world, but conflict is a new factor. During times of conflict, men are the ones who go to battle or are the ones who are targeted by extremist violence in west Africa and the Sahel. In either case, women find themselves being abandoned and must find solutions for feeding their children. Sometimes, this means leaving the community, going from one village to another and exposing themselves to all types of gender-based violence and sexual violence. I would not insist on girls marrying early. It is already a major issue in countries like Niger, where more than 70% of girls are married before their 18th birthdays. Unfortunately, during conflicts and food crises, girls are sometimes more likely to get married even earlier as a coping mechanism.