Meet Hassan. He's two years old. Any child who needs food as much as him is one too many. There aren't a lot of children at this therapeutic feeding center in Mau. Six to eight at any one time.

But that's what's worrying aid agencies like the World Food Program. Just 24 kilometers away, in Tukuli, prospects for an entire generation are measured in centimeters. Some 400 mothers and children have come to this supplementary feeding center for food being distributed by WFP. Random checks are showing too many severely malnourished children. Fatima is five, and the red means she should be in a hospital.

So should one-year-old Kubra and Secharis. The World Health Organization considers a 15% childhood malnutrition rate an emergency. Here in Western Chad, it's typically around 26%.

Suleiman Mahomet is one year old. The food he has been getting here is not enough and he needs to go to the hospital in Mao. His mother Fatima is 30. Survival for her and her family is a full-time job. and her husband is visiting his family for Ramadan, leaving her and her mother to take care of their seven children. It's no easy task since every day wood must be gathered for cooking and water fetched from a well at the health center five kilometers away by donkey.

Like most people in the Sahel, the Mahamat are subsistence farmers and the food they grow during the short rainy season must last them the whole year. It's a race against time, since food from the previous year's harvest frequently runs out while the new crop is growing. growing. Last year's drought caused a poor harvest and we ran out of food.

We hope this year will be better. It's the lean season here in the Sahel, but you'd never know it from these lush fields. For nine months of the year, it's desert. Up to 50 degrees in the sweltering heat.

There are few roads or power lines. Running water is a novelty in rural areas of the Sahel. These nomads are heading south to better pastures as the desert advances from drought.

Those who struggle to work the land or tend livestock are finding it harder and harder to survive. At the therapeutic feeding center in Mau, many of the severely malnourished children who have managed to come here from the surrounding villages will become healthy again. But the first two years of life are the most critical. They may never fully recover physically and mentally. The food selling men will be the most vulnerable.

will receive here can save his life. And since these pictures were taken, he has already shown improvement. But the window of opportunity is small.

It's critical that mothers like Fatime bring their malnourished babies here for help. FATIME MOURAD, WFP Mothers of Fatime Mothers of Fatime Mothers of Fatime Mothers of Fatime Women come from up to 40 kilometers away and must stay here with their babies for several weeks. WFP encourages mothers to come by feeding them too, while their babies are at the center.

Even charging your cell phone is a challenge here. As the people of the Sahel peer hopefully into the 21st century, the challenges to those living on the edge become greater and greater. For Hungry Planet, I'm Jonathan Dumont. This is Aroray, the last and most remote of 33 low-lying islands that make up the Republic of Kiribati in the South Pacific.

Scientists say that in the next 30 to 50 years, islands like this one will be underwater due to rising sea levels caused by global climate change. So what are people doing here now to prepare for a day when their country no longer exists? Bob Sorum is building a seawall to protect his house.

While most of his neighbours have moved inland, he's determined to stay put. But for how long? One conservative estimate from the University of Colorado predicts that global temperature changes will cause sea levels to rise as much as 2 metres by the end of this century.

For Kiribati's 100,000 residents who live on narrow strips of land just barely above sea level, it's a trend that spells disaster, says the country's president, Anote Tong. Already we have whole villages. being washed out, that the sea is rising. There is no running away from that reality. As conditions worsen, Tong says many here, like 23-year-old fisherman Rubita Yobite, are finding it harder to produce the fish.

food they need to survive. It's getting hotter, which is affecting the food we grow. Before our coconuts were big, but now they're as small as our fists. Coconuts are Kiribati's chief export.

As they shrink in size and number, poverty is growing. Despite these pressures, Tong resists the idea of moving people off the islands en masse. Having lost our homeland, having lost our cultural identity. I don't think we want to lose our dignity.

In what little time they have left, Tong plans to develop some of the islands and give his people the means to leave on their own accord. The idea is to encourage the development of the islands. We just need to be able to provide them with the opportunity.

the skill and whatever equipment they need. But convincing development organizations to invest in a country that won't be around in 50 years is not easy. For the first time, the UN agency specializing in agricultural development ethically sends a team to assess the situation on Kiribati's most remote southern island, Arore. We would like to understand some of the challenges that you face with the environment.

There has been a lot of damage to trees, wells are salty, there is erosion along the coastline. The president of the country is saying that the whole survival of the islands over the next 50 years is in question. A challenge that we face is what happens in the course of these 50 years. The effect of the climate change is enormous.

The FAD team helps islanders develop a plan, one that tackles some of their most immediate problems, like the intrusion of seawater, but also breaks new ground for those living on the front lines of climate change. This agricultural research centre has been set up to help islanders produce food locally. The aim is to identify food crop varieties able to tolerate rising temperatures and grow in salty water.

It's Tong's goal to turn islands like Aroha into a world of food. into centers for food production, growing crops that could help feed populations in places where the impact of climate change is advancing much more quickly. But these are just temporary measures.

Tong says the real challenge is to make those countries contributing to climate change take responsibility for its effects. This represents the single biggest moral challenge to humankind. And if it doesn't, then it's not. doesn't respond to this, then there is no credibility to anything.

For Hungry Planet, I'm James here. Saddon has brought Igi to the first minute of the second half. The result of the match is Edzori, the other side.

The international ball from the left side appeared to be able to make a right leg. Good launch, Fragio Master. The goal is an English club now. It's Manchester United. Carrazzo was well started there, this time he was not far at all.

Carrazzo for the moment, he's going to make it. He's already doing it. Right leg, direct to the arc. Carrazzo!

Goal! The food situation is of grave concern in parts of the Sahel, with more than 10 million people at risk of hunger. In Burkina Faso, harvests are meagre, livestock pastures are dry, and with consistently high... prices for food and farming inputs, levels of hunger and poverty are rising. Fatima Tanabayogo lives in Poha, 65 kilometers west of the capital.

She is pregnant with her first child, but there are already 23 mouths to feed in this family. I get the water, I collect wood from the bush, and I mill the millet to make porridge. After the morning meal, that's it. There's nothing else until the next day.

FAO and the European Union have been working together since June 2009 to boost production and improve food security in Burkina Faso. The 18 million euro programme is benefiting 860,000... vulnerable households.

We are working on some key factors to boost production like training farmers in modern production techniques. We are distributing inputs because a bit of fertilizer really helps plants reach their potential. And most importantly, we supply improved seeds for all the small farms here on the plateau. The primary long-term aim is to create a sustainable system. of multiplication and certification of good quality locally adapted seeds.

But the project also includes work on capacity building, institutional and technical support, research and training, as well as efforts to build up local infrastructure. For some, the current crisis might even turn into an opportunity. Seed producers in irrigated areas are now able to improve their revenues and contribute to improve food security around the country. I really like this.

high production levels can compensate for the next season in vulnerable provinces which don't produce as much, which lack seeds and which are facing food insecurity. So part of this production from banzon and other areas goes to the high-risk areas to fill the deficit. Distributions of improved seed for the next planting season will give 100,000 vulnerable households the chance of a better harvest.