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2005 is supposed to be the year for Africa. The worlds of culture, economics and politics will, one hopes, be dominated by a celebration of all that is wonderful in Africa and a focussed effort to remove the obstacles to the people's progress out of poverty.

This involves untangling trade agreements that shut out African farmers from exporting and overwhelm them with imported subsidised surpluses to kill off the domestic market for their produce. It means an end to the usurious lending programmes of Western banks and governments that leave the poor of a country paying half their income to Western banks that lent money to crooked dictators long since departed. And it means the pooling of knowledge and creativity required to find new ways for African economies to grow without killing the environment or destroying social bonds and customs.

Can Africa rise again? Without doubt. It has the people, the natural resources and the cultural fabric required. Simply by stopping the current way in which Western companies and governments profit out of African misery and war and removing the debt burden would be enough to let the millions of talented Africans take their rightful place in the world.

And if Western expertise and money switched from millitary to medicinal in nature, the immediate circumstances and lives of millions of ordinary people would be transformed.

Let's all hope that 2005 is the tipping point for Africa.