INTRODUCTION The security context in Mali has long been predominantly characterised by growing urban and suburban crime as well as various inter-community conflicts which, in some cases, date back to several years. Such conflicts are spread countrywide and contribute to making security challenge worse, namely: the: recurrent rebellion in the North, school-based disturbances and trade unions' restlessness, for instance. Under these circumstances, right from the attainment of independence up to 2005, there had been no reference framework to address national security policy issues; hence no security vision was defined. Consequently, during the'90s, insecurity-related challenges grew beyond reasonable proportion, mainly due to the 2 nd rebellion which affected the country's northern region(1990-1996), The rebellion was inspired by the armed conflicts raging in the sub-region, particularly in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Côte d'Ivoire, Niger, Mauritania and Senegal). With the rising phenomenon of organised cross border and transnational crimes(smuggling of cigarettes, alcohol, hard drugs, weapons and even humans, added to the presence of terrorists across the country as from 2003, etc.), the security situation worsened. The extensive geographical area of the country(1 241 328 sq kms) provided a suitable ground for these adverse developments. Large, desertic and unpopulated areas became the dens of armed bands and all sorts of smugglers. These criminals had taken advantage of the lengthy(7 240 km) and porous borders separating the country from Algeria, Niger, Burkina Faso, Côte d' Ivoire, Guinea, Senegal and Mauritania). Besides, each of these neighbouring countries, at one time or another their history had experienced a major governance-related crisis. 1