By Adam Lusekelo Dar-es-Salaam

Images of poverty obscure success stories

Just weeks after the 11 September attacks had reminded the world of the folly of letting Afghanistan disintegrate for a decade, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair insisted on the importance of healing Africa's problems.

"The state of Africa is a scar on the conscience of the world," said Mr Blair in October 2001.

Fifteen months on, what has come of that crusade to make Africa's plight a global concern?

Do his words have a hollow ring or is there a real prospect of a fresh start for Africa?

In the first of three reports from the World Service, the BBC weighs up the evidence.

Huge task

Tanzania's president, Benjamin Mkapa, says the challenge is to "narrow the gap between protestations for global good on the one hand and meaningful, sustainable action on the other".

Kenya's election - a sign of hope?

African leaders have come up with proposals to stimulate development through Nepad, a partnership with the G8 to pour funds into Africa whilst expanding democracy and tackling corruption.

Nairobi's rapidly growing Kibera slum symbolises the problems that Nepad is designed to address.

More than 500,000 Kenyans live in squalid shacks, without water or sanitation.

Yet for the past 20 years Kenya's ex-president Daniel Arup Moi could see Kibera from his hillside residence.

Aid worker Chris Williams describes finding a 14-year old girl living in a latrine there.

"Mud walls, a mud floor and a hole... It's probably the lowest level you can get, and it's wrong. It's just wrong."

Africa is by far the world's poorest continent. Half the population of sub-Saharan Africa live on about $1 a day.

Glimmers of economic hope

Will Nepad go the same way as previous grandiose plans for Africa conjured up by international donors?

There is no doubt that the challenges facing the continent remain real and stark.

But there are signs that this could be a time of opportunity for Africa.

Economically, the picture is not all hopeless.

Uganda and Mozambique have annual economic growth rates of 7% and 10%, showing the downward trend is not inevitable.

More than 20 African countries achieved economic growth rates of more than 4% in 2001, whereas Britain's has been revised downwards to 1.7%.

Corrupt leaders

Professor Ali Mazrui, one of Africa's most distinguished political scientists, thinks that a new era of African leadership is needed.

Many of Africa's greatest leaders were liberation leaders.

"But the skills of liberation are not necessarily relevant for mobilising people for development," says Mr Mazrui, regretting the decline of many leaders into "corrupt politicians".

What's important about Nepad is it's a reform agenda being articulated by Africans Clare Short, UK international development minister

Nepad and the African Union - as the relaunched Organisation of African Unity is now known - does seem to represent a fresh determination amongst African leaders to ensure better government.

One of the main architects of both is South Africa's president, Thabo Mbeki.

Mr Mbeki has argued that "experience over the last 40 years shows that where you don't have democracy, where you have military governments, civil conflicts... no observance of rule of law... all these things need to be addressed in order to form a basis for development".

What makes this new partnership different is that it's a home grown African initiative.

'Made in Africa' pact

At its heart lies a deal between Africa and the world.

African leaders will take responsibility for creating the right political conditions for development in Africa, ending regional conflict and improving government.

In return, they are seeking international support to end Africa's marginalisation.

Nepad aims to share experience to improve prosperity

Leaders of developed nations have noticed trends to better government, most recently Kenya's landmark handover of power following elections.

Such events unleash "trends (that) tend not to make headlines but show on the ground how the tide can be turned in Africa's favour", says Baroness Valerie Amos, the UK's minister responsible for policy on Africa.

Furthermore, despite the fragility of the situation in Ivory Coast, there are currently no military governments in sub-Saharan Africa.

"What's important about Nepad (is)... it's a reform agenda being articulated by Africans," says Clare Short, UK international development minister.

No naming and shaming

Critics have questioned whether Nepad can bring about better government in a voluntary framework assessed by fellow leaders, who include ex-dictators such as Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo.

"The reason it's voluntary is that it was felt we're not going to move forward if this thing is conditional on all 53 countries agreeing to this far reaching process," says Professor Wiseman Nkuhlu, chairman of Nepad's Steering Committee.

But already the credibility of Nepad and the African Union has been stretched by their failure to influence policy in Zimbabwe.

Defenders argue that the new framework is still teething, that it is too soon to judge.

Critics also point to famine in southern Africa states such as Malawi, where empty state grain silos stand witness to continuing corruption in the sales of basic goods.

Grassroots protest organiser Thierno Khan from Senegal says top-down reform is not enough.

"I applaud that we have some leaders that took time to think about the renaissance of Africa," he says.

"But it's not enough. Come back and talk to your people."

South African Trade Minister Alec Erwin compares the initiative with Europe's recovery from World War II.

"Just over 50 years ago, Europe had dictators who killed 20 million people," he says.

"But then they decided to change, and look what Europe is now."