Sahel Famine of 1968-1985

A series of severe droughts struck the Sahel, the semi-arid grassland belt spanning West Africa to Ethiopia, beginning in 1968 and recurring through 1985, in what is widely regarded as the worst sustained drought in the region' s recorded history. The initial 1968-1972 phase alone caused the near-total loss of crops and the death of an estimated 50 to 70 percent of regional cattle herds, with essentially no rainfall recorded in 1972 and the Sahara advancing as much as 60 miles southward by 1973; starvation and disease are estimated to have killed around 100,000 people in that first phase, and the crisis triggered the first large-scale mobilization of international famine relief and led directly to the creation of the United Nations' International Fund for Agricultural Development.