Between March and August 2005 Niger was hit by a doubling of millet prices and
a sharp rise in the number of severely malnourished children admitted to feeding centres. The
extent and causes of such crisis remain controversial. The paper reviews the evidence in this
regard in the light of the main famine theories. It concludes that the decline in food output
recorded at the end of 2004 explains little of the food crisis which was due to the entitlements
failure of several household groups, the malfunctioning of the regional and domestic millet
markets, and policy mistakes in the fields of food security, food relief and health financing.