"For the first time in about almost 30 years we've seen a large number of African countries that have begun to show sustained economic growth at rates that are similar to those in the rest of the developing world and actually today exceed the rate of growth in most of the advanced economies," he told the BBC.

The key, said Mr Page, was that "Africa has learnt to trade more effectively with the rest of the world, to rely more on the private sector, and to avoid the very serious collapses in economic growth that characterized the 1970s, 1980s and even the early 1990s."

The report points to wide variations in Africa, however, highlighting three distinct groups of countries:

* The big oil-exporting countries
* Those with expanding, diversified economies
* And those which have few natural resources, are conflict-prone and are experiencing slow or no growth.

For example, 60.5% of total net foreign direct investment in sub-Saharan Africa in 2005 went to oil exporting countries (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7093912.stm)."

*

"......And, it's 1 -2 -3, what're we fightin' for....." :rolleyes: