Let Me Tell You About Where We’re Going - #3

Continue reading for info on Niger and a rabbit trail about mac and cheese.
This post will be the 3^rd and final post in the series with info about Niger. In the last 2 posts, I touched on the demographics and location. In this post, I will be writing a little bit about government and a little bit about the economy. I will possibly add in some other random facts that I found interesting.

Government:

So, to start off, the full country name for Niger is actually the Republic of Niger. The country was named after the one main waterway that passes through it, the Niger River. In 1958 the Republic of 

Niger was founded, and in 1960, the Nigeriens officially declared independence from French rule.

The system of government in Niger is a semi-presidential republic. What does that mean? Good question. Before I used my handy-dandy fingers to peruse Wikipedia, I also had no clue. After a few minutes of perusing I nearly found out how mac and cheese is processed, so I had to click “back” a few times and get on track again. Well, really I didn’t make it that far on Wikipedia, but I did get sidetracked by other interesting articles more than once. Anyway, a semi-presidential government, specifically that of Niger, has a prime minister appointed by the president, a cabinet who is also appointed by the president, and said popularly elected president.

The flag of Niger is orange, white, and green, etc, etc. Here’s a picture because those speak louder than words. Fun fact: My husband bought our own Nigerien flag about a month after we knew where we were going. It is currently hanging three feet from me, and I have to say, it adds a certain amount of fun to our living room.

Economy:

I could give you numbers about the Nigerien economy all day. No really, I looked up Nigerien economy and my screen was flooded with a lot of numbers, and it looked like a lot of math to interpret them all and make them more interesting for you. So some of the simple numbers of the 

Nigerien economy are as follows:

•          90% of the active labor force works in agriculture. The other 10% in industry and services.
•          The unemployment rate as of 2015 was 5.1%.
•          63% of the population is living below the poverty line. This was an older statistic, but from what I have heard, it is still relatively accurate.
•          In 2016, the exchange rate was 605.7 CFA Francs to 1 U.S. dollar. Their currency is backed by France and is used by 14 former colonies.

Random fun facts to finish off our time:

•  Only 2.2% of the population have access to Internet. For reference, in the United States 74.6% of the population have access to internet. If you just said “wow,” then we both said the same thing.
• Out of the 18,949 km of roadway, only 3,912 km of it is paved.

I hope you weren’t bored out of your guard by reading all these fascinating facts. I know I wasn’t, and as a bonus I got to do some extra research on mac and cheese. Okay, still joking about that one.

Until next time!

-The Thunders

Psalm 46:10 - He says, "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."

All written facts on this post were derived from the CIA World Factbook, unless otherwise mentioned.