NAIROBI, Dec. 10 (Xinhuanet) -- A continent whose potentials long confined by not only the reality, but also the perception, of poverty, conflict and disease, Africa has been held back in nearly every aspect of development as the rest of the world excel in areas of their respective strength.

    However, in the year 2005, this disastrous and conflict-ridden continent seemed to have caught a glimpse of ways out of this vicious circle of stagnation and pessimism. The countries are gearing up for an overdue revival and probably a last-minute opportunity to board the train of growth, before it's gone for good.

    BE COOL, CONTINENT-WIDE     

    Nearly incessant conflicts have depicted Africa through the world's media in people's eyes as an unsafe continent, heaven for warlords ready to ruin the wealth of a nation for his own profit, and paradise for corrupt officials who look after their own bank accounts by taking advantage of impunity endemic in conflict zones. But the tide is turning, as key governments and Pan-African bodies such as the African Union go an extra mile to solve conflicts that have paralyzed the economies in hotspots and impacted, at the least, negatively on the whole continent.

    In January this year, the Sudanese government and southern rebels signed a comprehensive peace accord in Nairobi, culminating two years of peace process to end the 21-year-old civil war in southern Sudan, the longest-running in Africa.

    The Sudanese civil war broke out in 1983 when the rebels took up arms fighting for self-determination in the southern part of the country. It is estimated that two decades of conflict have claimed 2 million lives, primarily from war-induced famine and diseases, and displaced over 4 million others. The peace accord is expected to usher in stability and development for the south, and the broader neighboring areas.

    The Great Lakes region, which used to be the fuse of conflicts in the whole of Africa, is making rapid progress in ethnic reconciliation and peace process.

    Ten years after the genocide that claimed an estimated 800,000 lives and tore apart the social fabric, Rwanda is now the exemplar in national reconciliation and reconstruction.

    In neighboring Burundi, which has suffered similar ethnic conflicts, the presidential elections in August ended a transitional period following decades of ethnic feud. Pierre Nkurunziza, a former Hutu rebel leader, took the helm of the tiny central African country, pledging to bring Hutus and Tutsis together.

    In the turbulent Democratic Republic of the Congo, thousands who had fled have returned to register for a vote scheduled before June 2006. The vote will be the country's first in 45 years.

    Not surprisingly, at the end of a UN Security Council mission to the Great Lakes area last month, the head of the delegation said that compared to two years earlier, when he was on a similar tour in the region, the situation has improved markedly.

    "We are profoundly impressed with the positive developments particularly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Burundi," Jean-Marc de la Sabliere, France's ambassador to the UN, who led the 15-member delegation, said at a news conference in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

    "Relations between countries in the region are also encouraging," he said.

    Encouraging developments also emerged in Liberia, a country notorious for decades of bloody conflicts and coups, and its governments' and rebels' roles in the volatility of the whole west Africa, foreign observers have praised the presidential election in November, in which Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was voted the first female president in Africa. Liberians are expecting the elections will mark a departure from war to lasting peace and stability in a country rich in rubber, timber, iron ore, diamond and gold as well as fertile soil.

    Somalia, the lawless Horn of Africa nation that early this year has moved its transitional federal government back home from Kenya, is beginning reconstruction after more than a decade of factional warfare, although the process is still haunted by insecurity, infighting and pirates that roam free along the country's 3,000-kmlong coastline.

    MONEY TALKS, ECONOMY RULES     

    Africa's economy has been for years marked by subsistence-farming, monotony in products, and high cost to do business because of instability and corruption and the smallness of markets. But the past decade has seen efforts from both outside and within to push for reform, and these efforts have begun to edge the continent's economy towards mend, despite critical opinions that more should be done to fight rampant poverty.

    Average growth rates of 6 percent for several countries suggested efforts to create the right environment for business and economic growth were paying dividends, said Robert Bunyi, chief economist Africa at Standard Bank South Africa.

    Help is also coming from the outside. In an effort to bolster struggling nations, Group of Eight (G8) countries have agreed earlier this year to cancel the 40 billion US dollars debt that 18least-developed countries owe to the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and African Development Bank. Among the beneficiaries, 14 are in Africa.

    Debt cancellation and increased aid pledged by the G8 wealthiest nations means African countries such as Tanzania, Zambia and Ghana will have more to spend on infrastructure, telecommunications, and technology -- further powering economic growth, Bunyi said in an interview.

    "Africa overall is making progress. The economies are growing and will benefit more from the G8 package of debt relief and more aid. There are those who say growth has not started to reduce poverty, but that will follow," Bunyi said.

    Bunyi cited Ghana, Mozambique and continental powerhouse South Africa, where reforms were driving economic growth; Zambia, where high copper prices boosted income; and oil-rich nations such as Nigeria, Angola and Chad, where ballooning oil revenues are being invested in economic expansion or tackling debt problems.

    As worldwide appetite for oil looms large, Africa, with its abundant oil reserve, is assuming an increasingly important role on global oil map, attracting more international investors to the region.

    Some poor countries in Africa are also gaining billions of dollars from tourism, the world's largest industry.

    "Of the 49 least developed countries, 46 of them now have tourism as the largest foreign exchange earner," said Louis D'Amore, president and founder of the Vermont-based International Institute for Peace Through Tourism.

    Last year Kenya, with one of Africa's most developed tourism industries, hosted about 600,000 tourists and pocketed 577 million dollars or about 12 percent of its GDP. In the coming year, Kenya tourism ministry officials said the country expects to attract 1 million to 1.6 million tourists.

    According to Akaki Ayumu Jovino, Uganda's minister of tourism and antiquities, tourism means jobs, poverty reduction and a better life for all the citizens. His country recently launched a million-dollar tourism ad campaign. Although a pittance compared to the budgets of major European destinations, Jovino said the media campaigns would help.

    "The challenge for Africa is not to sit back and lament," Jovino said. "We wanted to give a new visibility to tourism in Africa and we are succeeding."

    BEHOLD, THE UNITED STATES OF AFRICA, BUT WHEN?     

    Limited by smallness and powerlessness, African voices traditionally gets drown out by the resonance of the rich and influential West and new Asian upstarts. Years of conflicts and disputes have done nothing good to help, either. But African countries have realized in order to have a say in world affairs that eventually affect themselves, they have to speak with one voice.

    After a contentious debate at an emergency African Union summit on UN reform in August, 46 of the pan-African body's 53 members reaffirmed a joint position on the continent's Security Council representation adopted in July in Libya, refusing to drop demands for two permanent veto-wielding seats on an enlarged UN Security Council.

    The outcome had disappointed the so-called G4 -- Brazil, India, Japan and Germany -- which has been lobbying for African backing for its proposal to enlarge the council to 25 members, with six new permanent seats without veto power and four non-permanent seats.

    Algerian Ambassador to the UN Abdallah Baali, one of the most forceful opponents of the G4 draft, felt clearly vindicated.

    "We are pleased that the AU has maintained its unity, articulated around the position we adopted" in Libya last month, he said. "We believe the African position is a realistic position, a legitimate position."

    The AU, which insists on veto power for two permanent Security Council seats that would be allocated to Africa, seems determined to strengthen its representation in the world body.

    Formed three years ago, the AU has played an indispensable role in resolving disputes and maintaining peace in the region, achieving remarkable progress in Cote d'Ivoire crisis and the peacekeeping in the Great Lakes region, and bringing the Sudanese government and the western Darfur rebels together on peace talks.

    Furthermore, Africa's leaders have agreed last month that a union government was needed for the poorest continent to hold its own among the world's other regional blocs.

    Revisiting an idea that goes back decades ago and was once championed under the banner of "pan-Africanism" by Ghana's first president, Kwame Nkrumah, the leaders said the union should not only be of governments but also of the African people.

    "The necessity for eventual union government is not in doubt," said the leaders in a collective statement after meeting in the Nigerian capital, Abuja.

    They said the pursuit of a union government should be based on identifiable shared values and common interests.

    "Such values may include among others democracy and human rights, liberal economic management framework in particular monetary and fiscal discipline, development of African human resources, agricultural resources among others," they said.

    The continent is already heading toward regional economic integration. Several economic blocs in the region, such as the East African Community (EAC), the Common Market for East and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), have been implementing the practice of custom unions among member states.

    Despite the ongoing efforts to integrate and revive the continent, Africa still remains home to virtually all of the world's "ultra-poor" -- leading critics to complain that not enough is being done to bring the benefits of growth to the African people. Enditem