Yes. I've lived in West Africa for about 7 years total. I've seen plenty of 50m deep wells pulled by hand go dry or collapse. People collecting water from puddles after a rain, rather than walk a mile to the well.
The old guys in Mali and Niger talk about being kids, roaming forests and keeping hyenas from eating the goats. One village I knew was named "it's an elephant." It's all gone now. It's been gone for 30 years. The elephants, the hyenas, the forests north of 13 degrees N, are mostly gone.
But some trees are still there, all the way into the Sahara. There are oasies and seasonal lakes with fish and wells and crops. Herders graze goats and donkeys in narrow bands far into the Sahara.
Im not saying it's great, but im not saying it's absolute devastation and hell on earth. I'd rather be there than some isolated community in Alaska or Siberia.