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Last updated: 04 June, 2007 - Published 07:21 GMT


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Tony Blair and Africa

What is Blair's legacy in Africa?
From Focus on Africa and Network Africa

"When I think of Africa... I fear my own conscience..." Tony Blair voices his fears on Africa.

Blair on Africa

Blair's premiership: an overview

One of Tony Blair's biggest concerns during the second half of his premiership has been the plight of Africa. He famously described it as a 'scar on the conscience of the world'. Two years ago when Britain held the rotating presidency of the Group of Eight industrial nations, Mr. Blair made sure that the reduction of poverty in Africa was top of the agenda at the G8 summit in Scotland. Peter Biles reviews Tony Blair's achievements.

The Blair years

Blair the interventionist

But while some progress was made in the area of aid and debt relief for Africa, criticisms of Mr Blair's intervention policy on the war in Iraq, have made his last months in office particularly difficult. But one country where his decision to intervene seems to have paid off is Sierra Leone. Freetown resident, Umaru Fofana tells the story of how hundreds of British troops helped rescue the 17,000-strong UN peacekeeping force whose soldiers were taken hostage by rebels; thereby helping to end the brutal war.

Tony Blair Kamara

Not all of Africa feels as blessed by Tony Blair's term in office. Tanzania's former leader Benjamin Mkapa was one of Blair's Commissioners for Africa but as Vicky Ntetema reports, the British prime minister's popularity has been on the wane for a long time.

Dar Disappointment

Special relationship

It is often said that Ghana and Britain developed a special relationship during Prime Minister Blair's tenure - a bond based on the outgoing British Prime Minister's personal chemistry with Ghana's president John Kufuor. Those links were strengthened when Ghana decided to join the World Bank's Heavily Indebted Poor Countries scheme - or HIPC.

Nana Akufo-Addo is Ghana's Foreign Minister, James Afedo asked him how Tony Blair's leadership impacted on the two countries' relationship.

Tony and John

Blair Commission for Africa

PM Blair's interest in African issues were crystallised around the work of the Commission for Africa - sometimes even dubbed the Blair Commission. The Commission brought together African and Western leaders and personalities who put together a report in March 2005 looking at how Africa and the world could make the continent "strong and prosperous".

One of the commissioners was Anna Tibaijuka, current UN under-secretary general and head of the UN Habitat programme in Nairobi. Uduak Amimo put it to her that although Tony Blair's Britain delivered on debt relief, it failed to achieve progress in terms of aid and trade.

A Commissioner's view

Also on the commission and a leader who has shared a good working relationship with Mr Blair is the Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. Amber Henshawe went to meet him.