Seven-year-old Achta stands in the door of her family's cooking hut, as her mother prepares dinner over a wood fire by the light of a flashlight, in the village of Louri, in the Mao region of Chad, Nov. 1. Achta's birth seven years ago coincided with the first major drought to hit the Sahel this decade. Climate change has meant that the normally once-a-decade droughts are now coming every few years. The droughts decimated her family's herd. With each dead animal, they ate less. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

A woman walks toward a well through clouds of dust raised by cattle in the wadi outside Louri village in the Mao region of Chad, Nov. 1. For generations, the people of this bone-dry region lived off their herds, but climate change has meant that the normally once-a-decade droughts are now coming every few years.

Teacher Djobelsou Guidigui Eloi works with a student at the blackboard in Louri village's school hut in the Mao region of Chad, Nov. 2. Many of the children, unable to read, attempted to pass the lesson by memorizing the sounds and their order on the blackboard. In 2011, 78 boys and girls enrolled in the equivalent of first grade in Chad's school system. Of those children, 42 failed the test to graduate into the next grade, a percentage that almost exactly mirrors the number of children stunted in the county.

Young men walk in the wadi alongside Louri village, in the Mao region of Chad, Nov. 2. Climate change has meant that the normally once-a-decade droughts are now coming every few years, decimating food production.

Health workers measure the height of a boy during a mobile clinic to identify cases of underweight, stunted, or malnourished children, in Michemire, in the Mao region of Chad, Nov. 4.

A boy watches as women pump water from the village borehole in Louri, in the Mao region of Chad, Nov. 3.

A little girl cries as she is weighed as part of a mobile nutrition clinic to examine local children and identify cases of underweight, stunted, or malnourished children, in Michemire, in the Mao region of Chad, Nov. 4.

Children gather under a sole shade tree as they take a break from class outside their schoolhouse made of reeds in the village of Louri, in the Mao region of Chad, Nov. 2.

In this Nov. 1, 2012 photo, 7-year-old Achta, right, walks with her mother Fatme Ousmane in the village of Louri in the Mao region of Chad. Achta's birth seven years ago coincided with the first major drought to hit the Sahel this decade. Climate change has meant that the normally once-a-decade droughts are now coming every few years. The droughts decimated her family's herd. With each dead animal, they ate less. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Seven-year-old Achta looks at the blackboard during class in the village of Louri in the Mao region of Chad, Nov. 2. In this village where malnutrition has become chronic, children have simply stopped growing. In the county that includes Louri, 51.9 percent of children are stunted, one of the highest rates in the world, according to a survey published by UNICEF - more than half the children in the village.

Seven-year-old Achta, her older brother, and their mother Fatme Ousmane share a dinner of rice and meat, a rare treat, leftovers from the recent Eid holiday, in the village of Louri, in the Mao region of Chad. The droughts decimated her family's herd. With each dead animal, they ate less.

Kouboura Adoum holds her son Nezile Moussa, two-years-old, as he receives treatment through a nasal feeding tube at the therapeutic nutrition ward of the hospital in Mao, capital of the Kanem region of Chad, on April 17.

A child has his weight checked in a hanging scale as other mothers and children wait their turn, at a walk-in feeding center in Mao, capital of the Kanem region of Chad on April 17.

A child has the circumference of her arm measured to check her growth, at a walk-in feeding center in Mao, capital of the Kanem region of Chad on April 17.

Halime Moussa, three-years-old, receives treatment via a nasal feeding tube and has bandaged hands to prevent him from removing it, at the therapeutic nutrition ward of the Mao hospital in the Kanem region of Chad. His mother, Kaltouma Abakar, left, traveled 70km (43.5 miles) to bring him to the center.

A woman casts millet grain for sale into a basket next to a walk-in feeding center in Mao, capital of the Kanem region of Chad on April 17.