At the end of 10 years' existence, the community health centres of Mali show a way of organisation which meets the public health requirements and demands of financial viability of any health establishment. Their originality lays in several factors: their legal personality, their private status, their financial support of the medical staff, their management by a users association and the public utilities agreement they have signed with the department. In spite of their success which makes their numbers reach 350, they suffer from great deficiencies, which are resulted by the lack of democratic traditions within the associations, a inappropriate transparency of their accounts and an inefficient supervision from the part of the department. The main questions posed by this new experience concern the limits of the concept of community, the importance of citizenship in the development dynamics, the participation of private institutions in the accomplishment of public utilities, the jacobin and authoritarian attitude of the department representatives, the contradictions between multiplication of centres to improve geographic access and the requirements of financial viability.