Africa rejoices, but seeks own answers

Two weeks after Africans danced for joy to see a black man elected president of the United States, a Kenyan newspaper columnist delivered a crisp warning to this complex and troubled continent: "Obama is not the Great Black Hope."

Africans will have to look for solutions within themselves, not abroad, Priscah Edith Awino wrote in the Daily Nation, the leading newspaper of Barack Obama's ancestral land.

The self-help theme has become increasingly prevalent with the recognition that 50 years of Western aid and emergency rescues of famine, disease and war victims have failed to cure Africa's ills, and may even have held the continent back.