the meeting with NGOS, civil society access to the prisons. Advantage should be taken of this healthy environment to ensure that Mali maintains a humane prison regime. International Community (i) A contribution towards the satisfaction of the medical needs (drugs, for instance) will be a useful contribution towards the efforts of the government of Mali in prison reforms. (ii) Equally, assistance in the establishment of workshops which will occupy prisoners and also teach them or improve the skills for use after discharge will be a worthwhile contribution. Kayes Prison has a compound where such assistance may begin. To all (i) As the prison warders in Kayes and elsewhere observed, when able-bodied people are engaged in economic activity, as during the harvest season, criminality is low and so is consequently the prison population. All parties, government, civil society and the international community should consider the workshops idea outside prison an enterprise which will make for low criminality, improve the income-earning capacity of the youth and others with their raising of the standard of living in Mali, and contribute towards making them a reality. (ii) I stood on the banks of River Senegal at Kayes admiring not only nature but the profitable use to which men and women, old and young were putting the water: vegetable gardens along the river. APPENDICES For the narrow interests of prison reform and the greater interest of the entire country, intellectuals, economists, agriculturists and all should constantly be exploring how what nature has endowed Mali with can be utilised by Malians so that all are usefully occupied and kept away from the wrong side of the Law. 48 49