While referring to the principle of Precaution and Prevention Culture, the President of the Republic stressed the need to inculcate the concept in children, first within the family circles and then at school. He suggested that children be fully made aware of security issues through relentless sensitization, information and education efforts. The Head of State said, for the sake of increased efficiency and sustainability, security actions should be covered by enabling budgets at the level of local authorities, the same way as it is done with health or educational facilities.« He went on: for each decentralised entity, there must be a Security Unit, involving all the polical, administrative and technical actors » for,« an harmonious development process which takes into consideration the human and social dimensions, in short the people's well-being, contributes to the consolidation of a suitably secure and peaceful environment..» To conclude, the President of the Republic and the Minister of Internal Security and Civilian Protection expressed, turn by turn, their vote of thanks to all the technical and financial partners who kindly supported the process of launching the National Conference on Security and Peace. They called on the other partners in development to kindly team up with Mali towards the design and implementation of new security governance system. 3.2. PROCEEDINGS IN PLENARY SESSION : The proceedings of the National Conference on Security and Peace started with an tntroductory theme on security challenges in West Africa, followed by the restitution of regional consultations. A. SECURITY CHALLENGE IN MALI AND WEST AFRICA Under this introductory theme, participants were provided with a summary overview of the security situation in West Africa which, in many respects, underlies the security landscape 119