Based on interviews conducted with the villagers of the rural districts of Oll?ll?wa and Tirmini in Niger after the food crisis of 2004?2005 we contest the notion that people who received food aid?whether from the State or from international NGOs?would become dependent on this aid. Far from displaying a passive, wait-and-see-type attitude, they describe a rationale of re-appropriation of the humanitarian assistance, informing us on the local socio-political hierarchies, on the dynamics which accompany the process of decentralization, and on the confrontation between different values.