The African Union has made huge strides since it sprang from the discredited Organization for African Unity, but still has much to do to better the lot of ordinary Africans, delegates said at a weekend summit.

At the Banjul meeting, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan lauded progress since the AU was formed, noting its peacekeeping operations, growth in many African economies and improvements in health and education.

"The African Union itself is in many ways the most eloquent testimony of that progress, in development, in security, in human rights -- the three interlinked pillars on which the human family must build its future," Annan told AU heads of state.

Diplomats said the African Union had emerged as a more business-like and focused organization than the OAU which it replaced four years ago.

The OAU was anchored in the fight against colonialism and apartheid but had not adapted well to new priorities.

"It is a much more serious organization to deal with and has made significant progress on issues like dealing with conflicts in Africa and governance," said one European ambassador there.

But some critics, including heads of state, said there was still too much talk and too little action at the 53-member AU.

"There has been a positive trend on our continent ... but to be honest I think there are still more speeches than real actions to deliver on the tangibles," Rwandan President Paul Kagame told non-governmental organizations in Banjul.

AU Commission Chairman Alpha Oumar Konare showed his frustration at the gap between words and deeds when he berated the summit with a list of a dozen pacts and protocols adopted by AU heads of state but not yet ratified or signed by many states.

Konare said he would not stand for re-election next year, and complained his mandate was hampered by bureaucracy.

"We need to better define the nature of our organization," Konare, a former president of Mali, told foreign ministers.

In a situation reminiscent of the old OAU days, the summit's decisions often first trickled out through rumor and hearsay with no proper system for disseminating what was going on.

Congo Republic President Denis Sassou Nguesso, the AU chairman, outlined some of the main decisions when the summit ended on Sunday, but no comprehensive details were available a day later.

"Getting information from the African Union, it's not easy," said an ambassador accredited to AU headquarters in Ethiopia.

Mixed messages

The weekend summit in mainland Africa's smallest country, Gambia, produced a mixed bag of decision and indecision.

On the one hand AU leaders finally grasped the nettle by asking Senegal to prosecute former Chadian leader Hissene Habre for political murder and torture -- a move welcomed as a "turning point" by U.S.-based Human Rights Watch.

"Things that normally before would be called interference in the internal affairs of a country, now you find we have a responsibility to protect, to protect the African people," said Liberia's Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Africa's first elected woman president.

But on the other hand a draft democracy charter enshrining human rights, fair elections and good governance was sent back for redrafting after some countries objected to a clause saying governments should not change constitutions to stay in power.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe appeared to outmaneuver Annan by appointing former Tanzanian leader Benjamin Mkapa as mediator in Zimbabwe's political crisis, which led the UN leader to drop his own plans to visit Zimbabwe.

And the summit appeared powerless to help Annan convince Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir to allow a UN force into Darfur, even though the AU badly wants blue helmets to take over from its overstretched force there.

Some 2.5 million people are living in camps after being driven from their homes by fighting that has killed tens of thousands of people in the huge western region.

"It's not how many times we repeat the speeches, but how much you deliver," Rwanda's Kagame said.