Humanitarian organisations estimate that 1.3 million people are suffering from acute malnutrition across the Sahel, a belt of countries from Mauritania and Senegal on the Atlantic to Chad in central Africa, taking in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. (..) The question is whether Niger and other Sahel countries will receive enough help for such measures at a time of financial crisis in the west. (..) In the region of Oullam, about an hour and a half's drive from the capital, Niamey, the World Food Programme's food-for-work scheme means families receive grain, vegetables and oil for three months in return for work designed to build up the community's ability to sustain itself.