NIAMEY (Reuters) - Niger has secured 100 billion CFA francs ($190.39 million) in financing needed to build a dam which is expected to make the country self-sufficient in power and boost agricultural production, the government said. The 130 megawatt Kandadji hydroelectric project, 180 kilometres northwest of the capital Niamey, was due to be built by Russia's Zarubezhvodstroy but the firm lost the contract last year after Niger accused it of delaying the project. The dam is now due to be completed in 2017 and will cost around $1 billion, a vast sum for one of the world's poorest nations. Niger is a small-scale oil producer but regularly faces food shortages due to poor rains. Amadou Boubacar Cisse, Niger's planning minister, said on Friday the extra funding would cover the construction of the power plant, installation of power lines and the relocation of 40,000 people who will be affected by the dam. Donors due to finance the gap in funding include the World Bank, the Islamic Development Bank and France's AFD development agency. Niger will launch a bidding process for contracts early next year. The dam is expected to ease power shortages in a nation that has one of the highest rates of population growth and must buy electricity from neighbouring Nigeria. The project calls for some 45,000 hectares of farmland to be irrigated to ease dependence on rains which often fail, leaving millions hungry each year. The government has also launched a programme known as 3N aimed at making the country more self sufficient. However, Cisse, the planning minister, said on Saturday the government still needed to find 223 billion CFA francs, or about 34 percent, to cover the programme's operations for 2014 and 2015. (1 U.S. dollar = 525.2300 CFA franc)