I understand what New Yorkers are going through after being battered by Hurricane Sandy. I understand what Jamaicans and Cubans went through when Sandy made a direct hit on both islands. I understand the helplessness that Haitians feel after being inundated by flood waters from the outer rain bands of...

The shocking news on Tuesday of the attempted assassination of a child...

He travelled two days by canoe down the Niger River and then 12 hours by bus to the town of Segou, 230km northeast of the capital, where he heard there were catch-up classes.

Oumar, 16, was preparing for exams when insurgents overran his historic town of Timbuktu. The town was...

The words leapt off the page at me: "The increase of child labour (due to the food crisis) was believed to largely be in the areas of domestic work (primarily affecting girls) and work in mines (affecting slightly more boys than girls). Child protection concerns surrounding domestic labour and mining...

The unmistakeable happy voices of children floated across the arid desert air in the Tabarey-barey refugee camp in Niger.

As I got out of the car, I followed the sound to some buildings made of straw. The makeshift structures were schools set up by Plan International. Inside the first class...

As the plane flew over Niger the familiar sight of the red desert sand and arid environment came into view. I was here two years ago when the new government declared a food crisis emergency and appealed for international assistance.

Then, when we stepped out of the airport and drove...

The "lean season" is a normal part of the life of farming communities in Africa's Sahel region.

Even in the best of years, there is still that period between the granaries reaching dangerously low levels and the next harvest when their income spikes, from the sale of the agricultural produce.

Severe flooding has reached the capital Niamey over the holy Islamic Ramadan holiday weekend of Eid-ul-Fitr displacing thousands of people and destroying numerous homes. Just over 161mmrain fell overnight Saturday 19 August 2012.

It comes just two weeks after half a year's worth of rain fell in the Dossa Region...

In the space of 10 months, Niger has been hit by a food crisis brought on by high market prices and poor harvests, a refugee crisis triggered by conflict in neighbouring Mali, followed by...

The poster image of drought - the caked brown dirt and withered crops - could easily be mistaken for some part of Africa had the caption not read 'USA'. The relatives of a colleague are on the frontline of this drought - said to be the worst in half a...