Many things have been blamed for this. In Ethiopia, for instance, years of drought and war had a devastating effect on food production. Yet even in these countries, farmland is often devoted not to growing food for home consumption but crops for export to the richer countries of the world. Even when food is available, many people cannot afford to buy it. Drying landscape Sceneswith dying trees and animals scratching in the dust have become increasingly common in North Africa.
Many experts feel the Sahara desert is gradually getting bigger.
Either way drought spells disaster. Large-scale projects such as big dams and power stations bring the Northern sponsors much prestige but can land countries in the South in debt, and also create other problems. The huge Aswan Dam in Egypt, for instance, upset the flood patterns of the River Nile that poor farmers relied on to keep their soil fertile. In dry countries , water is vital for growing crops. Water from an oasis is used for crop irrigation.