In the summer of 2012, a food crisis struck West Africa in a region called the Sahel. Particularly hard-hit was Niger, a country already languishing near the bottom of the United Nations Human Development Index. If the international community did not intervene, the food crisis threatened to escalate into a famine.

Kris Dmytrenko travelled to Niger to learn about the crisis. Why was it happening? What were Nigeriens doing about it? And how was the world trying to help?