The First Minister and Deputy First Minister are supporting a peace-building initiative designed to ease tension and localised skirmishes at Belfast's sectarian interfaces.
The Rev Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness were joined at an event at Stormont yesterday by Assembly members from all backgrounds including Progressive Unionist Party leader Dawn Purvis.
They were there to promote calls for calm at areas where nationalist and loyalist communities are in proximity.
Mr McGuinness paid tribute to those working to quell local tensions as the height of the marching season approaches.
"I want to pay tribute to everybody in the North Belfast Interface Network, from every section of the community, who have worked . . . to ensure that we have as little trouble as possible in interface areas."
Ms Purvis's party, which is aligned with the UVF, is stressing the role of outsiders in causing trouble locally and the need for further economic regeneration in deprived parts of the city.
The Executive is to discuss economic incentives for the UDA, designed to encourage its members to adopt a purely political path away from violence and criminality.
The initiative was originally announced last spring, and Social Development Minister Margaret Ritchie said payments to support regeneration in loyalist areas could continue if she and her ministerial colleagues were persuaded by progress on decommissioning and the ending of crime.
The Ulster Political Research Group, linked to the UDA, is seeking government funding for its "Conflict Transformation Initiative" aimed at weaning loyalists off illegal activity and into education, training and employment.
The Executive, PSNI and community organisations have been encouraged by the calm start to the summer's marching season.
In Belfast the recent Tour of the North and Whiterock parades passed off without incident following local agreements brokered with the help of an outside mediator.
The annual Drumcree parade takes place on Sunday in Portadown, Co Armagh, with signs that the local Orange Order leadership and nationalists may hold face-to-face talks.
The return leg of the Orange parade along the nationalist Garvaghy Road has again been prohibited by the Parades Commission. No march has used the disputed route in 10 years.
Sources in the town believe talks, under an independent chairman, could soon be arranged but almost certainly not in advance of this weekend's parade.
Meanwhile Finance Minister Peter Robinson has told ministerial colleagues to seek economies amid concerns of overspending by the Executive.