The Commission for Africa includes serving and former African leaders and financial figures.
 
Five years after the commission's initial report helped focus international efforts to boost development in the poorest continent, the panel issued a new report praising the progress African countries had made on the economy and on increasing spending on health, education and agriculture.

But it said much remained to be done.

Despite average annual growth rates for Africa of six percent for much of the past decade and a quadrupling of trade and foreign investment, most Africans had yet to feel the benefits of economic growth, it said.

While some African countries were on track to meet some of the U.N. Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), aimed at drastically reducing poverty and hunger worldwide by 2015, progress needed to be broader and faster, it said.

It urged African governments to ensure strong growth reduced poverty among ordinary Africans.

Donors were falling short of their aid pledges and progress on reforming international trade rules had been dismal, it said.