Crusted, Dead Sahel Soil in Niger Dug Into Half-Moons and Regreened Across 510 Hectares

In Niger's Zinder region, Nigerien NGO Karkara is the implementing partner of the World Food Programme's resilience programme (funded by Germany's BMZ) at Gagawa, where degraded, crusted land is being recovered with silvopastoral half-moon earthworks (demi-lunes) fertilised with manure, with a third of each site planted to trees and the rest seeded with fodder grasses. Around 510 hectares were recovered between 2024 and 2026, including sites of 115 and 198 hectares. About 948 very poor households were targeted, and the village has a nursery, a cereal bank, a deepened pond holding 34,470 cubic metres and a women's union supported with cash. Karkara, recognised by Niger's government in 1992, works through regional offices including Zinder, and the figures were reported in August 2026.