Long-time hotspots in Africa's war- torn regions cooled down considerably in 2005, and political stability in volatile places as Liberia has helped to bring the impoverished continent back to economic growth, restoring hope in its people.
Optimists might praise Africans for their own efforts to resolve their own problems, as witnessed in the crisis of Togo, while insecurity in Somalia and stalemate in Sudan's Darfur nevertheless evidence the lurking phantom of conflicts and feuds.
Albeit uncertainties in Africa's security map, the continent has started to reflect on ways to achieve swifter economic turnaround, and evidences are that a better year in 2006 is already around the corner. FEWER CONFLICTS
The first positive sign emerged in January, as the Sudanese government and southern rebel leader signed a comprehensive peace agreement, concluding an eight-year process to stop a civil war in the south, which has cost more than 2 million lives since 1983.
After establishing a transitional federal government in Nairobi in last October, the lawless Horn of Africa nation, Somalia, in June relocated the administration to temporary base of Jowhar. Although factions inside the government still feud with each other and pirates terrorize the seas off its coast, the relocation is still a significant step towards the end of a 14-year civil war between various factions and clans.
Most Burundians have the reason to believe their country is on the path to peace after a series of polls culminated in Pierre Nkurunziza's election and inauguration in August, under a UN- backed plan to end ethnic civil war that has killed 300,000 people since 1993.
The only remaining rebels, the roughly 3,000-strong Forces for National Liberation, have also expressed the willingness to talk peace with the new government of the tiny central African nation.
The west African nation Liberia also followed the steps of peace as Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was elected the first postwar president in November's elections, 14 years after the civil wars, which killed 200,000 people and left a once prosperous country in shatters.
The international observers declared the voting free and fair and Johnson-Sirleaf is scheduled to be sworn in in January. GOING HOME
For many Africans, peace has brought hope. Refugees are returning home, peasants can plant crops without fear that they will be destroyed by passing armies. People can travel around their country without fear of being caught in the crossfire.
"Twelve years have passed since I left my home," said former Burundian refugee Rurekana Bernard after returning home from Tanzania in August. "There's nowhere better than at home and I'm tired of being refugee."
"Now, there is no reason I should not go back home, because there is peace in my country," the old man in dirty clothes said with a smile. "Peace is the uttermost important thing."
Bernard was among the 885 Burundi refugees who, with the assistance of the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, transported from the refugee camps in Tanzania, back to their mother land on August 25 when the first postwar president was sworn in.
According to the UNHCR, more than 250,000 refugees have returned to Burundi until then, and as the repatriation process went on smoothly, about 245,000 refugees more, will be back gradually by the end of 2006.
The UNHCR is also assisting Sudanese who wish to return to their villages after a January peace agreement in southern Sudan which ended 21 years of civil war that displaced four million people and made refugees of another 500,000.
"In spite of the few services available after two decades of war -- poor roads, limited health care facilities and schools -- many refugees have told us they still wish to go back to their homeland," said the UNHCR. HOW LONG IS PEACE TO LAST
Some wars ended because the combatants were exhausted. Other wars ended because of successful diplomacy. Outside military intervention has also helped to calmed a few troublespots.
But one grave worry remains. Even in countries in peace, if the underlying causes of conflict are not properly addressed, the specter of war is never too far away.
Studies show that civil wars are more likely to occur in countries with bad governance, stagnant economies and lots of valuable minerals, and some argued, several wars that seem to have been extinguished are in fact only waiting to re-ignited.
"There will be no sustainable peace in Africa as long as poverty, bad political leadership and the many unviable states continue to exist," said Katumanga Musambayi, a political scientist based in Kenya.
"People will rise to resist the bad governance, so some conflicts are rooted in the strive for human rights and attempts to end marginalization," he told Xinhua in a recent interview, adding that if the critical subjective factor of leadership is not addressed, conflicts will continue to emerge.
Katumanga believed currently, most conflicts are rooted in the crisis of resource distribution and allocation as state leadership in most parts of the continent is in the hands of self seeking elite that practices politics of exclusion.
"What could help build peace in Africa lies largely with the African people and the emergence of an inward looking pro-people leadership," he said.
"A new leadership has to emerge and he must seek to take advantage of and add value to the resources, seek technology, build infrastructure and demand better terms of trade," he added.
He also argued regional integration and a shift in foreign policy engagements is critical to help Africa. African states should seek to engage emerging powers for meaningful partnership in order to access technology and infrastructure in exchange for resources.
Katumanga said the best way for the outside world to help Africa is "to build continent-wide infrastructure, cancel debt, repatriate stolen wealth, open markets to African countries and transfer technology that can enable these states to add value to their resources instead of exporting bulky primary products." AU AND ITS PEACEMAKERS
African efforts to resolve their own problems have grown more serious in the past few years.
Formed three years ago, the African Union (AU) has played an indispensable role in resolving disputes and maintaining peace in the region, achieving laudable progress in Cote d'Ivoire crisis and the peacekeeping in the Great Lakes region, and bringing the Sudanese government and the western Darfur rebels together on peace talks, although few progress is made in the vast western area of Sudan this year.
Furthermore, Africa's leaders have agreed that a union government was needed for the poorest continent to hold its own among the world's other regional blocs, and the continent is already heading toward regional economic integration.
Also, what worth to mention in 2005, are the special efforts made by the two outstanding peacemakers in Africa: Thabo Mbeki of South Africa and Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, the presidents of Africa's richest and most populous nations respectively.
Mbeki has worked hard to cajole warring factions into patching up their differences, with some success in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Burundi, and he helped to promote an agreement signed in South Africa between the two rival sides of Cote d'Ivoire.
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo was instrumental in brokering a 2003 peace accord that officially ended 14 years of Liberian war and he has also acted as a broker between warring parties in the western Sudanese region of Darfur.
As street battles broke out in Togo in February, after the army illegally install late president Gnassingbe Eyadema's son as new leader, Obasanjo use his influence to pressure Gnassingbe junior to step down and hold a presidential election. THORNY ISSUES IN 2006
In 2006, one of the biggest problems on the continent is still the Darfur crisis. Rebels began fighting in February 2003 in what they say is the political and economic marginalization of the region's tribes by the Khartoum government. Thousands of people have reportedly died and more than two million others fled their homes.
Although delegates at the AU-sponsored peace talks tried every effort to seek an end to the conflicts, it is believed the process will be long and torturing as the sides have entered the seventh round of negotiations.
An uneasy stalemate will still be holding in Cote d'Ivoire as it was split into two since fighting broke out in 2002 between the government and rebels who control the mostly Muslim north of the west African country.
African mediators have appointed a new prime minister to take charge of the program for disarming and integrating militias and preparations for presidential elections in October 2006.
The tension between the Horn of Africa neighbors Eritrea and Ethiopia is another worry in the coming year.
The UN mission was established after a two and an half years border war between Eritrea and Ethiopia. However, Eritrea recently banned UN helicopter flights and vehicle movements at night on its side of the buffer zone and it has demanded the United Nations to withdraw its mission as both countries began massing troops close to the border.
Another eye-catching hotspot in Africa is the turbulent DRC, as thousands who had fled have returned to register for a vote scheduled before June 2006. The vote will be the country's first in 45 years.
A vast country with immense economic resources, the DRC has once been at the center of what could be termed Africa's world war between 1998 and 2002, which claimed an estimated 2.5 million lives.
Expressing serious concern about the continuing hostilities by militias and foreign armed groups in the eastern part and the threat to elections, the UN Security Council extended the UN Organization Mission there until next September with an additional 300 troops.