Corruption costs Africa's economies more than €118 billion a year, according to a 2002 study of the African Union.
Transparency International ranks Africa as the most corrupt continent in the world. Of 44 African nations covered in its 2005 Corruption Perceptions Index, 31
scored less than three - "a sign of rampant corruption" - on a scale of zero to 10. Tanzania scored 2.9, while Chad - deemed the most crooked state in the world - scored just 1.7.
Corruption closely tracks poverty, with the average life expectancy in Tanzania just 46 years, and GDP per capita €230.
The World Bank, under its recently appointed president, American Paul Wolfowitz, has made tacking corruption in developing countries its stated top priority.
African Union members three years ago established a "peer review mechanism" to improve standards of governance. Rwanda and Ghana were first to undergo the test. This year it is the turn of South Africa and Kenya.
Irish Aid, the development wing of the Department of Foreign Affairs, is due to spend about 80 per cent of its 2006 budget (of €734 million) in Africa. In some states, up to a third of Irish Aid funding goes directly to African governments.