World Food Program USA

On a hot October afternoon in Ouallam district, in Niger's western Tillabery region, the air is still as the sun's rays hit the hard, crusty, red earth. Contrasting with this almost lunar surface is a field of green.

"This site's changed everything for us," says Biba, a woman in her fifties, pointing to where a few men and women are using sickles to harvest grass. With a laugh, she adds: "It's helped us to work together and it keeps the peace."

Biba and other residents of the three villages in this commune started working on this community-resilience project after identifying the rehabilitation of barren land as their most pressing need — it would enable them to grow the hay they need to be able to keep livestock.