of peace, civic education, conflict prevention, community dialogue and conciliation. The Programme gave the Network a decisive support for its launching and organisation of certain inter-community meetings in partnership with the Embassy of Switzerland Federation in Mali. With time, the populations, everywhere across the country, manifested their full support to the Programme through many project initiatives covering information, sensitization and training actions, as well as intra and inter-community gatherings, etc. Certain civil society organisations, which were already operating in the field for quite a long time before then, expressed the desire to enter into formal partnership with the Programme. Subsequently, community leaders, who turned out in large numbers at the gatherings organised under the aegis of State's representatives, hailed the proactive approach of the Programme Team which rekindles their confidence, encourages and supports the State's presence by their sides. This is particularly true with communities of Northern Mali which, following the rebellion that broke out in the early part of the'90s, powerlessly witnessed the public administration structures crumbling down or being withdrawn from the regional capitals. Now, faced by scores of project proposals, the Programme Team acted with utmost prudence, conscious of the fact that in this type of exercise, it is not always easy to differentiate honest individuals or corporate bodies from those driven by selfish intents and the thirst for easy enrichment. Therefore, precautionary upstream and downstream measures were taken by means of appropriate criteria governing drafting of requests for funding, production of detailed implementation and financial reports, to ensure a judicious allocation of the Programme's resources. With regard to the relatively positive reactions of field actors to the Programme and and relevant reform process, one negative factor is regrettable: the poor level of appropriation by the security 77