The 18th World Economic Forum (WEF) on Africa is due to be attended by eight African heads of state and luminaries of the business world, such as Coca-Cola chairman Neville Isdell and African Development Bank president Donald Kaberuka.

Organisers say they will not try to brush problems facing the continent under the carpet during the three-day meeting which begins on Wednesday but will also stress that there is much to be positive about.

"Africa has been making a lot of progress over the past 10 years," said chief programme organiser Stephane Oertel.

"It has been stabilising its economies, its fiscal policies, its macro-economic policies and there are new opportunities on the horizon, like the commodities upswing, that a lot of countries are benefiting from."

A WEF report released on the eve of the gathering said that 45 out of the 48 countries in sub-Saharan Africa had achieved growth rates averaging 4.7 percent since the turn of the decade.

However the rise in revenues had not been accompanied by a raising of living standards for most of the continent's citizens with the report warning that the "extraordinary" wealth inequality could lead to political instability.

The same report said that issues such as global warming and worldwide food crisis was hitting the world's poorest continent harder than anywhere else.

"The number of Africans who are undernourished has been rising for decades and now stands at about 200 million people," it said.

The report said climate change exacerbated problems posed by food shortages.

"Africa contributes least to global climate change, with only five percent of greenhouse gas emissions, but it is the most vulnerable region to the expected negative effects," read the report.

The meeting is being held in South Africa at a time when the continent's economic powerhouse is going through one of its most troubled periods since the end of the apartheid era of whites-only rule in 1994.

Official figures released last week showed growth more than halved in the first three months of the year to 2.1 percent, down sharply from 5.3 percent in the last quarter of 2007, after a series of power cuts hit mining output.

Business leaders, particularly in the key tourism industry, have also expressed fears about the long-term damage to foreign investment opportunities of recent xenophobic violence which claimed more than 60 lives in May.

According to Oertel, the meeting would cover "all sorts of issues from difficult conversations about Zimbabwe, infrastructure bottlenecks, to the crisis in South Africa at the moment, the energy crisis to more upbeat sessions about opportunities, the investment hotspots."

As well as host President Thabo Mbeki, other leaders due to attend include Nigerian counterpart Umaru Yar'Adua, Rwanda's Paul Kagame, Pierre Nkurunziza of Burundi, Bingu wa Mutharika of Malawi, Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga, Ghanaian President John Kufuor and Ernest Bai Koroma of Sierra Leone.

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