But telling fishermen to change the ways they've been fishing for decades is no easy task. Kondua joined seminars on sustainable management of marine life offered by the Ghanaian non-profit organizations, Coastal Resources Center and Friends of the Nation, with support from USAID. Armed with new information and tactics, he is bringing people together to hold the fishing regulatory agencies accountable for enforcing compliance with fishing regulations.

"We have to re-educate our fishermen to the right type of fishing. [We] help the Ghana government to build up a very good capacity for fishermen in this country," Chief Kondua says.

In his role as chairman of the Western Regional branch of the National Canoe Fishermen's Council, Chief Kondua's is encouraging fishermen to follow current laws and adopt good fishing practices in order to protect their livelihoods. This also includes health education and family planning.

Chief Kondua explains how family size and fishing practices are linked, "Whatever we do in the sea depends upon the children that you see now. If you get plenty children, you have to do all you can to bring more fish [in], whether good practice or not."

Kondua is also working to develop new laws to stop erosion and create marine-protected areas for the future of Abuesi and western Ghana because, as Chief Kondua shares,

"Be you a driver, a shopkeeper, a carpenter or a mason, anything—if you live here, you depend on the fishing."

In recent years, the US government launched policy reforms that make US foreign aid more accountable to you and local leaders like Chief Kondua.

Aid works best when it supports local actors to take action and change the circumstances which place or keep them or their fellow citizens in poverty—supporting them to build a dream, build a business, support their family, or help their community.

That's why Oxfam America is working to deepen the US government's commitment to making aid more effective. They can do so by putting more US aid dollars directly in the hands of people like Chief Kondua.

Read more stories at: www.oxfamamerica.org/aidworks/

Note: Oxfam America doesn't take federal funds, but we do support effective development programs. In 2012, the Aid Effectiveness Team conducted research to highlight effective uses of the 1% of foreign aid the U.S. government spends on poverty reduction and other life-saving assistance. The people featured in this series are not necessarily receiving direct assistance from Oxfam.

American poverty-fighting assistance saves lives and helps millions of people create a sound future for their nations and their neighborhoods.

And all for less than 1% of the federal budget.

- Martha Kwataine is leveraging a tiny investment of US foreign aid to protect the health of people in rural communities across Malawi. Click here to read more or download briefing note. Also see Martha Kwataine on The Hill's Congress Blog: Foreign Aid: A Beltway Outsider Perspective.

- Alexis Nkurunziza is leveraging a tiny investment of US foreign aid to open up budgets in Rwanda. Click here to read more or download briefing note.

- Majeda Begum Shiru is leveraging a tiny investment of US foreign aid to enable women to speak powerfully to improve health and education in Bangladesh. Click here to read more or download briefing note.

- Tanzanian farmer Emiliana Aligaesha is leveraging a tiny investment of US foreign aid to ensure the success of an early-stage, high-potential start-up. Click here to read more or download briefing note.

- Village Chief Kojo Kondua IV is leveraging a tiny investment of US foreign aid to train fishermen and protect jobs and the environment in Abuesi, Ghana. Click here to read more or download briefing note.

- Mayor Manuel Dominguez is leveraging a tiny investment of US foreign aid to budget for a sound future for his community in the Peruvian Amazon. Click here to read more or download briefing note.

...and many more stories to come!

Take action.

Oxfam America is working to deepen the US government's commitment to making poverty-reducing foreign aid more effective. We can't afford to let Congress duck their responsibilities and that's why we need your voice right now.

» » » Click here to tell Congress: Don't cut effective, poverty-reducing foreign aid.

Join us in person.

Interested in hearing these stories in person? Oxfam America is partnering with Dining for Women to spread the word on effective aid. Dining for Women chapters across the country are discussing Martha, Emiliana, and Majeda's stories at their chapter meetings. To join, find a Dining for Women chapter near you. Look out for events in New York, and Texas in May by following the Dining for Women and Oxfam America event calendars. We hope you can join us!

Learn more about making foreign aid more effective.

• Foreign Aid 101: A quick and easy guide
• Smart Development: Oxfam on making aid work
• Ownership in Practice: Foreign aid that strengthens the voice of the poor and the responsiveness of the state
• Fighting corruption with aid dollars
• Cutting aid that fights poverty? You must be quackers!

What others are saying about Oxfam's campaign for effective aid

• A compilation from Twitter
• Impatient Optimists: Interview: Oxfam and Gates Foundation Discuss How We Change the Conversation About Aid
• CS Monitor: Changing the face of aid, literally
• Everyday Ambassador: Flipping the foreign aid narrative
• Going International: We're all in this together
• Osocio: Don't Cut Aid: It's Working!
• Spirit in Action: Investing in Individuals
• whydev.org: The changing landscape of advertising on Aid & Africa: Oxfam's new campaigns

Note: Oxfam America does not take US federal funds, but we do support effective development programs.

This year, over 18 million people in the Sahel region of West Africa were affected by a severe food crisis caused by drought, a failure of several crops, and sharp rises in food prices. The lives of over 1 million children were at risk from severe malnutrition. Communities across the Sahel suffered (and malnutrition rates remain dangerously high) but a major humanitarian operation, acting earlier than ever before, managed to protect the lives and livelihoods of millions of people.

Oxfam played a major part in this effort. We provided urgently needed assistance to over 1 million people throughout the year. Over 600,000 of our supporters worldwide joined us in campaigning to raise the alarm and to mobilize the international community into action.

At the end of 2012, good rainfall and better harvests have provided some relief. Cereal production is 13 percent higher than last year, but this does not mean the crisis is over. Food prices remain high and many farmers were unable to take advantage of the better rains to plant their crops. Malnutrition rates for children remain above emergency levels in many parts of the region. Millions of people still require sustained support to recover from the crisis, to rebuild their assets and livelihoods, and to be able to support their families.

As well as dealing with the immediate challenges of helping people recover, we need to work together to tackle the underlying causes of food crises in the Sahel. Even when the harvests are good, 230,000 children die of malnutrition-related causes each year. Oxfam is dedicated to supporting small-scale farmers so they can produce more food, supporting the incomes of the poorest people through cash-for-work programs, and building systems of food reserves. These are just some of ways we can help to build the resilience of communities to future shocks, and avoid crises in the future.

“It is hard not to be able to feed your children,” says Adama Diallo.  “You can’t be at peace. You can’t sleep at night.”

Diallo, who lives in the village of Tankanto Escale, Senegal, is no stranger to hunger. Each year in the run-up to the fall harvest, those who depend on agriculture experience a lean season, when the last of the stored food runs out and they must cope as best they can—reducing their meals to a minimum while they eke out an uncertain income from day labor, trading, and in some cases mining for flecks of gold.

But this year, the lean season in Senegal—as in much of the western Sahel—began months early, and the consequences have been harsh. More than half a year on a sparse diet of millet and rice has left many children severely and visibly malnourished. And farmers, many of whom have had to sell off their labor-saving equipment and draft animals to buy food, face the difficult task of cultivating crops while hungry and fatigued.

Diallo’s own story is not unusual: after the disastrous harvest of 2011, her stocks of food ran out quickly, and she resorted to a hand-to-mouth existence as a trader in the marketplace, beginning each day with no money and only borrowed goods to sell, and ending with—if she was lucky—enough food to get through another day.

“If the food is not sufficient,” she says, “we only give it to the children.”

Diallo’s struggles didn’t go unnoticed: Oxfam’s partner FODDE (in English, Forum for Sustainable Indigenous Development) included her in a program to distribute cash to the people most in need in this emergency. So recently she traveled to a credit union in the nearest large town, presented her cash voucher card and ID, and received enough money—provided by Oxfam—to feed a household of 10 people for a month (about $8 per person).

Cash buys food—and more

Why distribute cash rather than food during a food crisis?

It is a surprising fact that in the midst of a food crisis, marketplaces may be overflowing with food. In the Kolda market, for example, which serves Tankanto Escale, some local farmers – despite the crop failures—have managed to gather or grow a few items for sale. They ran out of rice months ago, but traders have filled that gap and many others by importing goods from other regions.

As long as food is available, there’s no need for an aid provider to undertake the costly and time-consuming process of shipping it in. Yet people who have lost their harvest—and with it their main source of income—may not be able to afford the food that’s there. For that, they need cash.

Cash payments quickly go to work in the local markets, benefiting not only the people who receive the money directly but also the local farmers and vendors they buy from.

And cash provides flexibility. A food distribution might involve fixed rations of beans and grains—the non-perishables that can travel long distances— but people who receive cash can buy a variety of foods, including eggs, fresh fruit, and vegetables. Furthermore, those who have pressing medical concerns can make the choice to spend some of their money on doctors and medicines.

So in southern Senegal and some of the other crisis-affected regions, Oxfam is focusing not on providing food but on providing the means to purchase the foods and critical services that are available locally.

There was enough for everyone

Diallo used her first payment to buy rice, soap, and cooking oil. “Once we received the cash, there was a big change,” she says. “Before, we ate twice a day, but never enough. The children ate three times a day, but it never filled them. After the payment, there was enough for everyone.”

The money not only helped her meet immediate needs—it released her from the daily imperative of earning money in the marketplace, so she has had a chance to plant her fields. Which means that if this season’s promising rains continue, she will likely have a harvest in October or November that will help her get back on her feet.

“Now I have peace,” she said, “and I am sleeping well.”

Read blogs about Oxfam’s cash and public health programs in Senegal.
Read about Oxfam’s response to the food crisis throughout the western Sahel.

Donate now to the Sahel food crisis fund.

On distribution day in the village of Louga, women and children sat patiently, waiting for their names to be called as workers carefully measured each family’s allotment. Here, every grain is precious. Though Oxfam has selected the most vulnerable villagers to receive the food—widows, divorcees, and people caring for orphans—in reality the sorely needed calories will be shared widely among many. It’s one of the survival strategies common in Louga, where the homes sit close together along dusty paths and the temperature soars to 104 degrees.

“Solidarity here in this community is very strong,” says Khadidja Idriss, a mother of six children. She shared with 10 other families some of the food she received on distribution day, which included 75 pounds of corn, 9 to 11 pounds of beans, a little more than two quarts of oil, and close to a pound of salt.

“My neighbors have virtually nothing either, but they will even feed my children if I’m out. We help each other, regardless of how little we have,” Idriss says. “This is how we survive.”

Before the distribution, Idriss , who suffers from increasing pain in her legs, had been struggling to find enough food for her family. Meals consisted of corn flour mixed with water, and a sauce made from leaves gathered by her children.

“The children often don’t manage to sleep and they cry because they are hungry,” said Idriss. “Sometimes I have no words of comfort for my children. I boil water with a bit of salt for them to drink, which will fill them up.”

But there is no comfort like food, and when Idriss learned that her family had been selected for the distribution, she could hardly wait to convey the news.

“I told my children straight away and they were so happy and joyful and haven’t talked about anything else since,” she said.

The day before the distribution,  a neighborhood child, propped near the doorway of Adoaga Ousmane’s home, chewed on a pit from a piece of fruit . The fruit was long gone, but the chewing helped stave off hunger. For Ousmane, caring for a house full of children and grandchildren, hunger has been no stranger. Her family, too, was among those selected to receive the monthly rations. And like Idriss, her share went far beyond her own threshold.

“I shared the food I received with three other families,” said Ousmane. “I can’t eat my food while other people go hungry. We always share if we can. There is a strong feeling of solidarity in the village. I have to help others who are in need as they would help me if I asked.”

On the edge of the Taffoga cooperative, in a clearing among the huge mango trees that populate the community, we are welcomed by about 30 women, who describe the horticultural work they are able to carry out with the support of Oxfam, through its local partner ATAD.  In the vegetable plot they have planted cabbages, aubergines, gombo (a local vegetable), onions, and garlic. These will enable the women to improve the variety of their diet and they will be able to sell any surplus.

Ramata Zore stops for a few minutes to talk to us while her colleagues water and weed the plot.  She is 25 and has 4 children to look after. And at the moment she is on her own, as her husband has gone to the Ivory Coast to look for work.

“The vegetable plot is a help to me, because what I get from it goes somewhere towards feeding my family,” she says. “If I sell some of the vegetables, I can buy millet, which is the staple part of our diet. Also, in these difficult times, we make a recipe based on millet with a few cabbage leaves, which the children love.”

But gardeners here face a daily struggle: Water.

“There isn’t enough water and the wells are drying up,” says Zore.  “We’ve had to organize ourselves into two groups: one group does the watering one day and the other does it the following day. In fact…after a few hours of watering, the well is dry and we have to wait a while before we can fill up the buckets again”.

After we have been talking to her for a few minutes, we notice that the coming and going of the women up and down the rows is starting to slow. The four wells on the perimeter of the garden have dried up and the women are congregating around them with their buckets and watering cans, waiting for the water levels to rise again.

“I live in Taffogo and in spite of our having large fields for growing crops, we’ve only harvested four sacks of millet this year, compared with the 20 we can get in a normal year,” says Zore. “But it’s a long time since we had a normal year.  Last year, the floods destroyed much of the harvest. We go from one catastrophe to another, either because of too much water or too little.”

“Before, when rain wasn’t in short supply, we had 15 small sheep and cattle,” Zore says. “But we’ve had to sell them all and have now only got one small goat left. As I’ve got nothing else, I’ll have to sell her to buy seeds for next season.”

How to feed her children is always on Zore’s mind.

“Often they tell me they’re hungry and all I can offer them is comfort,” she says. “If there’s something to eat, I give it to them, and if not, I ask the neighbors.”

“My dreams?” Zore asks, surprised at my question about her wishes for the future. “To have enough food to feed my family and a house built of bricks, instead of a shack like the one I live in now. I’d also like to keep up the vegetable plot for five years.  Then, if I manage to find something else to do which will enable me to supplement my income, I’ll be able to start a small business. I want to carry on with the vegetable plot and earn money to help my children.”

Oxfam is aiming to help 1.2 million people across seven countries with programs that include cash transfers and cash-for-work initiatives, veterinary care for the livestock on which many families depend, and access to clean water and sanitation. We are also campaigning to change the root causes of this crisis. Find out how you can support our efforts.

The singer and his band, The Orchestre Daande Lenol (“voice of the people” in the Fulani language), held an all-night concert in Wodobere village to raise funds for affected communities.

Maal paused during the concert attended by 1,000 people in the remote village to speak about the food crisis in Senegal and other parts of West Africa. “There is a need to act fast to avoid the situation getting worse. We saw children who don’t even have water to drink. Everywhere it is dry, wells have dried up, and dead animals are littered everywhere.”

The morning after the concert, Maal visited the village of Mbelone located two and a half miles from Wodobere. “We face serious problems here. Our livestock are dying before our eyes,” said Ely Hamady Diallo, the chief of Mbelone, to Maal and a group of journalists. “If we humans do not have food to eat how can we feed our animals? Every other day we lose an animal -- the livestock are our livelihood.”

“I am here with Oxfam to call on governments and the international community to come and help,” Baaba Maal said to journalists after listening to the villagers. “We are demonstrating that artists are not just there to perform and make money. We can be agents of development.”

More than 18 million people are affected by the food crisis in the Sahel region of West Africa owing to irregular rainfall last year, a lack of animal fodder, poor harvests, and lingering vulnerability from the 2010 food crisis. Rising food prices across the region and political conflict in Mali compound the situation. In Senegal, 850,000 people are affected. Oxfam’s response to the crisis will include: cash transfers so families can purchase food and agricultural inputs like seeds, as well as assistance to ensure people have clean water, sanitation, and hygiene assistance. With sufficient food and seeds, families stand a much better chance of a successful harvest this year.

Oxfam is aiming to help 1.2 million people across seven countries with programs that include cash transfers and cash-for-work initiatives, veterinary care for the livestock on which many families depend, and access to clean water and sanitation. We are also campaigning to change the root causes of this crisis. Find out how you can support our efforts.

“I harvested practically nothing,” Founé Danfakha says of her 2011 yield. She grows groundnuts, maize, and rice in Bembou, a small village about 50 kilometers east of Kedougou, near the border with Mali. The 60-year-old mother of five children and grandmother of four says, “If the rain comes normally, I can get 20 sacks of groundnuts. Last year I got only five.”

Danfakha has about five acres of land. She says her last harvest was dismal: She got three bags of rice, which is about 30 percent of the normal harvest. She planted about an acre of maize, but harvested none at all.

No seed, no harvest

Danfakha is sitting in front of her home, with her four-year-old grandson on her lap. The boy is quiet, and seems to have little energy. Danfakha says she is feeding everyone in the household regularly, despite the fact that the food she grew last year lasted only two months after the harvest in November. Usually she grows enough to last four months. She says she is meeting her family needs with money sent from her daughter, who is digging for gold in a nearby mining area.

When the rains start, Danfakha’s daughter will come back to help her prepare her fields and plant. “I think we will have to cover our needs growing groundnuts,” she says. “I don’t have enough rice seed, but I think I have enough groundnut seed.” When her daughter comes back they will have no income from mining while she works in the fields, so it is a calculated risk.

“The situation is difficult here. There’s a problem of rain,” Danfakha says. “It’s been irregular. If there’s not enough rain, there won’t be a harvest. And if there is no seed, there’ll be no harvest.”

Oxfam is collaborating with local organizations in Kedougou to help farmers there and in other areas of West Africa with crucial agricultural support, so they can plant this spring. Oxfam is also planning work that will help keep drinking water clean and safe, and provide food or short-term employment for cash wages, so farmers can meet their food needs over the summer while they work their fields.

Oxfam is aiming to help 1.2 million people across seven countries with programs that include cash transfers and cash-for-work initiatives, veterinary care for the livestock on which many families depend, and access to clean water and sanitation. We are also campaigning to change the root causes of this crisis. Find out how you can support our efforts.

She planted a maize field and hoped to grow a ton, but only got one 50-kg bag. She says the poor result was due to “lack of rain, lack of good equipment for cultivation, and lack of money to pay for labor.”

Her situation is rather typical in the small village of Bandafassy, about 15 kilometers from the town of Kedougou in eastern Senegal, where erratic rain last year hit farmers hard. The resulting high demand for food grown in other parts of the country is pushing up prices, and forcing farmers who were already struggling to feed their families to find creative ways of coping.

Erratic rain prevented any decent harvest

Camara is the one in the family responsible for agriculture, but her husband Nicolas Keita helps prepare fields for planting and the harvest – when he is not away mining for gold to earn cash.

Keita says they planted in early June, but by the end of the month it had stopped raining, and what they were growing dried out in July. They replanted in August, and invested in some fertilizer. The rains were intermittent in September and stopped altogether in the beginning of October. "The rain gap in June and July prevented any decent harvest," he says.

"Things are going to go badly," Camara says she realized after the harvest. "But we will make every effort." She turned to gathering wild fruits in the forest, such as the seed pods of the baobab tree and jujube berries to feed her family.

To earn money, her mother-in-law began making clay pots for storing water; Camara walks 15 kilometers to Kedougou (carrying a 10-pound pot on her head) where she sells the pots for about $5 each. If she can make a sale, she buys food and returns. In a good week, she can sell two or three pots.

Camara reports that after a good harvest she can feed her family for about six months, but this past year the food only lasted about four. She says she is down to her last two bags of rice, one of which she wants to save for seed. “We will always find a way to get by,” she says with a certain resignation. The threat to farmers like Camara is that of another year of diminished harvests: Successive bad years can lead to a downward spiral that even the most resourceful farmer can’t avoid.

Oxfam is designing programs to help farmers like Camara get the resources they need to plant crops this year, so that when the rains come people will have an opportunity to grow what they need for food. Cherif Sow, who works for the Kedougou Association for Action and Development, an Oxfam partner, says the need for support in the area is crucial. “We have to help the communities as quickly as possible to help them survive the lean time, otherwise it will have an impact on their agricultural production.”

Oxfam is aiming to help 1.2 million people across seven countries with programs that include cash transfers and cash-for-work initiatives, veterinary care for the livestock on which many families depend, and access to clean water and sanitation. We are also campaigning to change the root causes of this crisis. Find out how you can support our efforts.

The conflict in northern Mali, one of the driving factors of last week’s coup d’état and the temporary closure of borders, had already posed a major risk to vulnerable communities in Mali and the region. Now there are signs that the escalation in the country’s instability is further affecting the already serious food insecurity across West Africa, meaning a rapid increase in humanitarian assistance to the region is urgently needed.

• In Mali, over 200,000 people have been displaced since January. Half of these people have fled to neighbouring countries, and they are in urgent need of food, water, sanitation and shelter. Further waves of displacement remain a risk.
• The disruption of local and cross-border food markets have limited food supplies and increased prices. Markets in Bandiagara at the border with Burkina Faso, Menaka bordering Niger, Nara-Nioro bordering Mauritania, as well as Niono and l’Office du Niger  in the centre of the country, which provides rice for all four countries, have all been hit.
• Traditional migration routes used by pastoralists have been disrupted. Conflict has caused livestock, an essential source of food and livelihoods, to be herded in large numbers towards the south of Mali, and across to Burkina Faso, Mauritania and Niger, where fodder, food and water levels are dangerously low and threaten their survival.
• A reduced ability to travel across borders to seek alternative sources of income and employment to support families at home. This is a traditional way that people cope during crises, with Nigeriens travelling to work in northern Mali, Burkinabè searching for work in central Mali, and Malian women of Nara and Nioro travelling to Mauritania.

While Oxfam and other agencies continue to operate and provide assistance to vulnerable populations in zones affected by conflict, a further degradation of security may risk hampering humanitarian access and provision of basic services to areas of greatest need.

In Northern Nigeria, an increase in conflict over recent months has also affected communities who are struggling with the food crisis. Some border posts in Borno and Yobe states  have been closed due to growing violence, while at other borders exports have been dramatically reduced, having a major impact on the ability of hard hit countries such as Niger and Chad – where 9.7 million risk going hungry this year – to import food. There has also been a sharp downturn in the migration of workers – an important way that families cope in hard times – due to fears of violence.

“The Sahel was already facing a serious and complex food crisis this year, and the growing security concerns in the region risk aggravating the situation further,” said Al Hassan Cissé, Oxfam Regional Food Security Policy Manager. “Regional food markets are not able to function properly in such conditions, meaning greater assistance is rapidly needed to protect millions of people who risk going hungry across the Sahel.”

Responding to the increased humanitarian needs of displaced people, Oxfam is already providing food, water and sanitation to refugees and host communities at three sites in the Tillabery region of Niger, as well as the Fassala transit camp in the Nema region of Mauritania. Preparations are also being made to provide assistance to 19,000 refugees in Burkina Faso. Overall, Oxfam plans to reach 350,000 people in Mali and 1.2 million people across the Sahel with humanitarian assistance.

“The insecurity in Mali must not prevent the urgent efforts needed to deal with the other crisis in this country: the lack of affordable food that threatens the lives and livelihoods of 3.5 million Malians,” said Eric Mamboué, Oxfam Country Director in Mali. “While Oxfam continues to work alongside others to tackle this crisis, dealing with the urgent nutritional needs of the Malian population must remain a top priority for all actors in the country, and access to desperately needed humanitarian assistance must be ensured”. 

Some 13 million people in the Sahel are facing a major food crisis in 2012 as poor rains and locust attacks led to a drop in cereal production of 25%, while in some regions such as Gao in northern Mali prices of food remain over 70% higher than the five year average.

What has the erratic weather—drought, flooding—meant for the people of Kolda in southern Senegal? It’s made them among the most food-insecure in the entire country, said Greg Matthews, a humanitarian livelihoods officer with Oxfam America, who recently returned from a field visit.

“In the village of Karcia bordering the region of Sedhiou, the overall production has dropped by 80 percent compared to last year,” added Isaac Massaga, an Oxfam America humanitarian program officer in Senegal. “A woman we talked to said she harvested 400 kilograms of rice last year and only 80 this year—on the same size of land.”

Massaga said lack of rain has also hurt the production of vegetables, an activity that usually provides a substantial source of income for women and their households.

Peanuts, the cash crop that many farmers in the Kolda area depend on to support their families, have taken a severe hit as well. During the last harvest in October, production plummeted by 60 percent, said Matthews, leaving  families with less money to buy food. And at a time when they need to purchase even more of it to make up for what their fields couldn’t produce, the shortages are beginning to take a toll.
When there is a lack of food—or money to buy it—families resort to other ways of coping. They may borrow food or cut down on the number of meals they eat each day. Often, they turn to searching for wild foods, such as roots, fruits, or grasses

“In the south, families showed us the clover-type grasses they were collecting for their households,” said Matthews. “People told us how they had borrowed rice from family or friends, or money so they could buy a kilo to feed their children.”

Normally January and February are times of plenty around Kolda. Farmers have cash from their harvests. They have stocks of food. Their families can eat three times a day, every day. But not this year.
“Now, they’re saying they’ll eat, definitely once, usually twice, and maybe three times—if they have enough money, or if they happen to sell a goat,” Matthews said.

Cutting trees to survive

To get cash, more people are resorting to a hard—and environmentally destructive—solution: They are fanning out into protected forests and cutting trees, which they then turn into charcoal. Senegal’s capital, Dakar, has an enormous appetite for charcoal, said Matthews, as it is the main cooking fuel used there. Neighboring Gambia is also a big market.

“You see huge trucks filled way higher than they should be—filled with thousands of sacks of charcoal—going into Gambia,” Matthews said.

“In our conversations with Abdou Seydi, the regional director of rural development for Kolda, he expressed deep concern about this phenomenon,” said Massaga. “It’s not only accelerating deforestation in an already fragile ecosystem, but it also heavily affects the soil fertility, and thus impacts the medium-to-long-term agricultural productivity in Kolda.”

But without alternatives for feeding their families, people are not likely to stop cutting trees added Seydou Wane, the executive secretary of FODDE, a local organization Oxfam works with.

What complicates the food situation in Senegal is that while one community may be struggling to ensure there is enough to eat, just a few short miles away another community may be faring fine—a disparity that makes generalizations impossible. Poor rainfall was not universal.

“We went into one village, Balkamissa, and the first thing I saw were these stacks—chest high—of millet that had been harvested, dried, and stored under a tent,” said Matthews.

As bountiful as the harvest may have been in Balkamissa, it’s clear from the assessment missions Oxfam has undertaken that many families are struggling and need help to make it through to the next harvest. In a three-phased response, Oxfam plans to help tens of thousands of  Senegalese meet their immediate needs, recover some of their losses, and better prepare for the next time trouble strikes. And among the initiatives around Kolda will be income=generating activities so families won’t have to rely on dwindling forests for their survival.

“When my kids are having fun, when they’re not hungry, when they jump left, right, and center, that’s the most pleasure I get,” she said.

But with rain in short supply, Senussi is worried about what the future will hold. Across the Sahel region of West Africa, a number of conditions are converging that could trigger a new food crisis. Low rainfall and water levels, poor harvests, lack of pasture, and high food prices are all causing serious problems, even as people are still trying to recover from the last food crisis in 2010 which affected 10 million of them.

“If the rain does not fall, it will be a disaster for us,” said Senussi. “The animals and the people need the rainy season. Pastures grow during the rainy season. Without rain there is no life. We’ll have to migrate but now we don’t know what will become of us.”

For many families, hunger is a hardship they have long endured.

“Usually, a family should eat three times a day, but now that is not the case,” said Koubra Hamid, a 40-year-old mother of eight children who lives in Sallal, Chad. She has only enough food to prepare one meal a day for her family—a ball made of rice or flour and served with a sauce.

That single meal a day is all Hamid’s family has had for several years. They don’t have the resources for more. To buy grain in the market, families may first have to sell one of their animals to get cash.

“If we had animals, we could feed our children more often,” she said, but as the pastureland has shrunk, so has the size of their herd. And in the harsh calculus herders know well, the 13 camels Hamid’s family has held onto don’t add up to full stomachs for her children.

“To prepare two meals a day in one household like ours, the head of the family should own at least 30 animals,” said Hamid. “Our only source of income comes from the rain. Rain falls, grass grows, animals graze this grass, then we sell the animals to provide for us. If the rain doesn’t fall, we cannot talk of life here.”

Nor is it easy to speak of hunger and its devastating consequences.

“The truth is, we don’t have the right to say that someone has died because of hunger,” said Ashta Hamid, Senussi’s older sister. “We cover this and say they died because they were sick, but really, lack of food kills.”

In Chad, where crop production from a recent harvest was down 50 percent, reports have indicated that 13 out of 22 regions could be affected by food insecurity.

Oxfam is gearing up to address the needs of the most vulnerable people in the region and in some places across the Sahel the organization has already been working with communities to increase their resilience.

In the village of Kouzi Wahid in northern Chad, Fatna Bakhit is growing tomatoes, watermelons, turnips, and onions with seeds and gardening tools she received from Oxfam. She’s counting on the produce to help tide her family over: The last harvest was poor and they lost most of their crops. And her husband has now gone off to look for work.

“When this effort bears fruit, I will be able to take care of my small family whilst awaiting support from my husband,” said Bakhit.

Across West Africa a new food crisis is looming over a population that has already endured three of them since 2005. The last—in 2010—affected 10 million people.

But with early action, the hardship and loss so many have suffered through in the past seven years could be softened and that’s what Oxfam America’s humanitarian workers Isaac Massaga, Julie Savane, and Greg Matthews are taking the first steps to put in place. They are just back from Boulal, a collection of villages in the north, where they were working to identify the greatest needs and the responses that would best fill them—now, and longer-term.

“We’re in a good position now to mitigate the serious consequences of an acute food crisis and to help people not resort to selling assets and cattle to meet their basic needs,” said Matthews, speaking from the Oxfam office in Dakar, Senegal’s capital.

Selling valuables—livestock, farm tools—is one of the strategies poor families without cash employ as a last resort when faced with no other way to get food: They’ll use the money to buy it in the market. But in selling these important assets, they are also limiting their ability to make a living, and that drags them deeper into poverty. Halting that cycle is key to averting a crisis.

During the last growing season, rainfall in Louga was erratic, said Matthews, sometimes coming in great gushes and sometimes not at all. For the crops—millet, cowpeas, and peanuts—the result was dismal.  The yields are off dramatically.

One farmer Matthews spoke with said he and his family had just consumed the last of the millet they had harvested in the end of October—300 kilograms worth. That was five times less than he would get in a good year. And the next planting season is still four months away.

How will people manage? Some, like the millet-grower, will pursue petty commerce, such as hunting for wood that they can sell as fuel in the market. But for many herders facing lean times, their strategy is to migrate with their livestock in the hope of finding pasture elsewhere.

Early migration

In Boulal this year, that migration has started much earlier than usual, said Matthews.

“The hardest months for pastoralists are April, May, and June—right before the rains begin,” he said. “But they’re starting to experience that now, in the beginning of February, so most of their productive animals have already started to migrate.” That means families must take their kids out of school prematurely and abandon other livelihood efforts, like gardens and small shops, that could help support them.

Poor harvests are also adding to the stress herders are feeling. With fewer crops pulled in from the fields that means fewer leftovers of leaves and stalks to feed to the livestock. And as the health of their animals declines, so does the value of sheep, goats and cattle.

Coupled with all of this, said Matthews, are climbing prices in the markets. A 50-kilogram sack of rice that once could be had in a trade of one sheep now costs a herder two or three.

“Because of all this, people are starting to employ early coping strategies,” Mathews said. “They are starting to change the way they eat and manage their finances to prepare for a long, hungry season.”

But even as they take these steps, the future hangs heavily.

“People are really worried about what will happen a month from now,” Mathews said. “Most of the food reserves are already exhausted.”

Solutions

Among the responses Oxfam is weighing are cash transfers—a tool that would allow hard-hit families to carry on as they would normally. With cash, they could buy the essentials they need during this critical period but not have to sell vital assets to do it, said Matthews. A second approach might be to help herders get access to fodder for their livestock, which provides both food and income for families.

But longer-term, the goal is to help communities become more resilient.

“The bottom line is working with communities to take charge of the issues and find solutions themselves,” said Matthews, pointing to a milking cooperative that had worked successfully in the area for a while. “It’s not about money. It’s about having, at the base community level, the desire to work together and the capacity to manage working collectively.”