Drought is a phenomenon associated with a deficiency in precipitation for a long period of time, usually a season or more. It is a prolonged abnormality of the natural climatic pattern. It may also differ greatly from one area to another. The study employed a systematic literature review involving the Preferred Reporting Items and Meta-Analysis (PRIMA) guidelines for review and analysis. Relevant literature was sought using a systematic document search procedure from a sophisticated database using the search string" drought impacts" OR" drought environment" OR" drought risk" OR" drought mitigation" OR" adaptation risk" OR" drought adaptation" OR" climate impacts" OR" drought smallholder OR" drought Sahel" OR" Adaptation ability". Keywords were searched in the title and abstract, including where otherwise indicated in the supplementary files. They include documents that were written in English and span the period from 1970-2020. The findings indicate that droughts, particularly in the 70s and 80s, have ravaged the Sahel region, and the Niger Republic in particular, resulting in socio-economic, physical, and ecological degradation, loss of biodiversity and loss of ecological stability, decline in surface water, reduction in water availability for irrigation, severe malnutrition, loss of livestock, decline in agricultural production, increased rate of unemployment, and severe food shortages.