Dar Looks Forward to Obama's Tour

US President Barack Obama will embark on his first major African tour later next month, visiting Senegal, Tanzania and South Africa, the White House announced on Monday.

Obama spent only a few hours in Ghana during his first term but this time he is keen to implement a sweeping new regional strategy, prioritizing democracy and economic reform.

The White House said the long-awaited visit was intended to underscore Obama's "commitment to broadening and deepening cooperation between the United States and the people of sub-Saharan Africa" to advance peace and prosperity.

  welcomes President Obama's planned visit to the country later next month. Obama will be the second sitting US president to visit Tanzania, after George W. Bush, who made a historic tour in February 2008.

"President Obama's visit to Tanzania is aimed at consolidating good and long standing bilateral ties between Washington and Dar es Salaam. "The visit also underscores the United States endorsement and recognition of Tanzania's good record on democracy, governance and economic reforms," said the Director of the Directorate of Presidential Communications, Salva Rweyemamu.

In his African tour, Obama will meet officials, businessmen, and civil society leaders, including young people, on the trip between June 26 and July 3, an unusually long journey for a president who normally dashes across time zones on trips abroad. His visit to Africa will follow a similar tour made by his wife Michelle in June 2011, during which she met former South African President Nelson Mandela.

While the president is yet to mount a full tour of the continent, he did host a meeting at the end of March with recently elected Senegalese counterpart, Macky Sall, along with the leaders of Sierra Leone, Malawi and Cape Verde, lauding them as examples of "the progress that we are seeing in Africa."

In 2011, Obama received four other African leaders at the White House, the presidents of Benin, Guinea, Niger and Ivory Coast. He had promised them the US would remain a "stalwart partner" to democracies in Africa.

In June 2012, Obama unveiled a sweeping new Africa strategy, with the goal of reinforcing security and democracy on a continent facing the threat of Al-Qaeda and a Chinese economic offensive.

The new US blueprint seeks to boost trade, strengthen peace, security and good governance and bolster democratic institutions, declaring that a continent torn by poverty, corruption and discord could be the world's next big economic success story.