"Africa is changing for the better” said Tony Blair

The former prime minister acknowledged that poverty and conflict posed "immense" problems, but said there had been significant advances in economic growth, democracy and leadership.

"Africa is changing for the better. The perceptions of Africa are also changing for the better," he told the Times CEO Africa summit in London last weekend.

"There is a new sense of hope and confidence, optimism and an expectation that is based on evidence not dreams.

"Above all, I am noticing in my frequent visits there that there is a new generation of leaders in politics, business and civic society who don't simply have a new competence about how they approach their tasks, but a new attitude, a new frame of thinking, a new way of looking at their own situation."

Blair, whose Africa Governance Initiative seeks to help the continent's leaders improve structures of government, called for a new relationship between rich and poor countries in the provision of aid.