In an effort to build resilience against climate change among the rural poor in one of West Africa’s poorest region, Rural Africa Water Development Project (RAWDP) is expanding its operations into the Sahel.  The Sahel, a semi-arid belt of barren, sandy and rock-strewn land, stretches 3,860km across the breadth of the African continent and marks the physical and cultural divide between the continent's more fertile south and Saharan desert north.  The Sahel belt, which varies from several hundred to a thousand kilometres in width, covers an area of just over 3,000,000 km².  A major component of the programme is a collaborative working relationship between RAWDP, local NGOs and small holder farmers in the states of the Sahel: Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Chad, Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal, also known as the CILSS member states. The programme will run from 2010 to 2020 with a periodic review every 2 years.