With her visit to Liberia and then Cape Verde, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is coming to the end of her gruelling, seven-nation African tour.On the one hand it has gone well. She has proved to an audience that was beginning to doubt President Barack Obama's commitment to Africa, that he really takes the continent seriously.
And she delivered the message President Obama first gave during his recent visit to Ghana wherever she went - that Africa's people deserve better from their governments.
As Mrs Clinton told her audience in Kenya: "True economic progress depends not only on the hard work of millions of people who get up every day and do the best they can, often under overwhelming circumstances.
"It often depends on responsible governments that reject corruption and enforce the rule of law and deliver results for their people."
On the other hand there was little new in the way of policy.
No fresh initiatives on trade or aid and certainly nothing about the most controversial subject on America's agenda - its future military role in Africa.
Africom, the force that oversees US security interests on the continent, remains based in Germany and there was nothing said about possible plans for a military base on African soil.
