ADDIS ABABA (AFP) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair was due to outline his personal vision for the future of Africa at a meeting of the organisation he set up to spur development efforts in the region.
Blair was scheduled to deliver what his aides termed a "major" speech on Africa at the Commission for Africa meeting in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, on Thursday afternoon.
Earlier in the day he had set aside time to visit a community centre dealing with people with HIV/AIDS near the capital.
Blair set up the Africa commission in May, drawing together 17 luminaries ranging from Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to Irish pop star turned charity organiser Bob Geldof, to draw up a blueprint for the continent's future.
Blair, who flew into Ethiopia on Wednesday from Sudan, where he warned the government there that it must do more to ease the humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region, has pledged to make Africa one of his top foreign policy objectives.
He has promised to make it a key part of the agenda during 2005, when Britain holds the rotating presidency of both the G8 industrialised nations' club and the European Union.
At a joint press conference with Prime Minister Meles shortly after he arrived in Addis Ababa, Blair said that, along with efforts to halt global climate change, Africa would be "the dominant theme" of the G8 presidency.
Blair rejected the accusation that the Commission would end up being just another talking shop, with little action.
"I think that is the important point -- that it must not became that," he told reporters.
In Sudan, the British premier had presented Khartoum with a five-point plan to alleviate suffering in Darfur, where conflict since February 2003 has left an estimated 50,000 people dead and another 1.4 million displaced.
The UN has threatened sanctions against Sudan if it does not take steps to disarm the Arab Janjaweed militias, responsible for much of the violence, and Blair warned that "the pressure remains on" for sanctions if progress was not made.
The trip to Africa, less than a week after he underwent an operation to correct a heart flutter, is gruelling for Blair, but a welcome break from fevered speculation at home about his future in power.
Just before his operation, Blair tried to head off rumours that after seven years as prime minister he might be stepping down by announcing he would serve a third full term if his Labour Party wins elections expected next year.
However the announcement, coupled with both the heart ailment and news that his family has bought a new private home in London, have served merely to ratchet up pondering in newspapers as to whether he might soon be replaced by Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown.