The South African President, Mr Thabo Mbeki, has told US business leaders that he was working for an economic sea change in Africa that would end a common view of the continent as "only competent at holding out a begging bowl".
"What we want to see is an end to this picture of an African continent that is unable to be at peace with itself, that is unable to create conditions without which development is possible," Mr Mbeki said in a speech to the US-South Africa Business and Finance Forum in New York.
President Mbeki, who trained as an economist in exile during white-minority rule, this week gave his first speech to the UN General Assembly as president.
