Impact stories

It’s 10 am and a powerful sun is already burning the nature around Sayam "Forage", a village located 50 kms north of the town of Diffa, eastern Niger

The only thing Attahirou Roro can do with his dried-up crops is to use them as material for the walls of his little hut. Too little rain during the last planting season meant diminished crops

“We are in a situation of famine. No words exist to describe the tragedy happening in the houses you see here,” says 46-year-old dad of eight Alhou Abdou.

Guilley, a village deep in Niger, reflects the impact of the food crisis that 6,130 villages are living through in Niger. But Guilley also reflects the resilience and the resourcefulness of women in coping through crises in the Sahel.

In 1992, when the idea of a microcredit and savings programme emerged from the first project in the Maradi Region (in south central Niger), it was hard to imagine that its impact on rural women would