An estimated 18 million people were affected during the Sahel crisis last year, he added.
Plainly, fighting terrorism or hostage-taking in the Sahel is a different sort of intervention.
The importance of sound water management for sustainable development was highlighted, especially in the Sahel region.
One area of concern is the Sahel, a vast semi-arid area south of the Sahara desert.
Mali's difficulties are equally part of a wider regional crisis extending across the Sahel.
The Sahel states' two biggest neighbours, Nigeria and Sudan, already have them the armed kind.
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Huge swathes of the Sahel region south of the Sahara Desert have been rendered off-limits to foreigners.
Even so, while borders in the Sahel may appear on maps, they have little bearing on reality.
It says that more than one million children in the Sahel region are at risk of severe malnutrition.
From the late 1940s through the late 1970s, when global temperatures cooled, rainfall in the Sahel declined dramatically.
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In the Indian state of Maharashtra, in the early 1970s more food was available than in the Sahel.
What the Sahel really needs is to make itself able to cope with the recurrent threat of famine.
Lake Chad, like Darfur Lake, is in the Sahel region where rainfall has been increasing since the 1980s.
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Atmane Tazaghart, author of a book on AQIM, says there are an estimated 1, 200-1, 500 Islamist fighters currently in the Sahel.
And Mali, another country in the Sahel, is coping with thousands of refugees after a military coup there last month.
Throughout West Africa and the Sahel, Westerners have become targets for both militant groups and criminal gangs, which are sometimes indistinguishable.
In September 2011 the Sahel Working Group, a coalition of development and aid outfits, published an influential report on the subject.
Mr Hollande acknowledged that one goal, the release of six French hostages being held in the Sahel, had still not been achieved.
This reflects the strategic vision to maintain stability in the Grand Sahara and in the Sahel region and to enhance Maghreb integration.
The Sahel is the area along the southern edge of the Sahara.
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In China, as in the Sahel, the needy were killed as much by a lack of democracy as by a lack of food.
Rainfall in the Sahel over the last three decades of the 20th Century was 25-40 percent lower than it was between 1931 and 1960.
What used to be seen as separate, local difficulties in California, the desiccated Aral Sea, the Sahel now look more like manifestations of a global problem.
Abdelmalik Drukdal, the overall leader of AQIM, is said to have demoted Belmoktar late last year from his position as 'Emir of the Sahel.
The pastoralists took refuge in the Sahel, Saharan highlands and Nile Valley, where they gave rise to numerous African cultures, including that of Pharaonic Egypt.
Elsewhere in the Sahel, five French hostages are still being held.
The statement said the death of "one of the main leaders of AQIM marks an important stage in the fight against terrorism in the Sahel (region)".
To investigate the exact nature and impact of these changes, UNESCO is launching two studies on the relationship between environmental degradation and migration in the Sahel.
He stressed that the crisis is having "far-reaching effects" in West Africa and the Sahel, and that it has heightened the terrorism threat in the subregion.
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