Nairobi — With Kenya having taken what a top US official terms "a step backwards," President George W. Bush is highlighting Tanzania this week as a model of stability and development in East Africa.

As a sign of the increasingly close relations between Washington and Dar es Salaam, Mr Bush is scheduled to spend most of his six-day tour of Africa in Tanzania.

Following a meeting with President Jakaya Kikwete on Sunday, the American leader is expected to travel to Arusha on Monday to visit a textile mill that manufactures bed nets used to protect against malaria.

Mr Bush's itinerary then takes him to Rwanda, another nation viewed by the US as an African success story.

In the run-up to the president's visit, US officials in both Washington and Dar were touting Tanzania's strong economic performance and social harmony. In an implicit contrast to the that has recently wracked Kenya, the US ambassador to Tanzania, Mark Green, pointed out that 123 ethnic groups "have come together in a unified, peaceful, stable country."

Mr Green further praised Tanzania as "a shining example of a unified, successful nation here in Africa."

US-Tanzania relations "are very friendly and getting more friendly with each passing day," Mr Green added.

President Bush will suggest during his visit that this achievement can be partly credited to a partnership involving massive infusions of US aid. Tanzania ranks as a leading recipient of US funds for fighting Aids and malaria and for spurring economic growth through infrastructure improvements.

It is the demonstrable success of these initiatives in Tanzania and a few other countries that has led some analysts to describe Mr Bush's Africa safari as a "victory lap" he is running in the final year of his presidency.

This year alone, the US is providing Tanzania with some $300 million for the prevention and treatment of Aids and another $35 million for reducing the incidence of malaria.

In addition, Tanzania has qualified for the largest assistance package so far approved by the five-year-old Millennium Challenge Corporation. Under this programme, which rewards developing countries for promoting democracy and implementing free-market economic policies, Tanzania is set to receive nearly $700 million during the next five years for improvements in its electricity system and road network.

Some gains linked to these US initiatives can already be seen, American officials say. They point, for example, to a 95 per cent drop in the number of malaria cases among children in Zanzibar between 2005 and 2007.

This dramatic outcome is said to reflect the impact of the President's Malaria Initiative, which aims to halve the number of malaria deaths in 15 African nations by 2010.

Tanzania has also been put in the spotlight to call attention to the success of Mr Bush's anti-Aids programme for Africa.

Tatu Msangi, an HIV-positive resident of Moshi, attended Mr Bush's State of the Union Address last month as an honoured guest, along with her young daughter, Faith.

When Ms Msangi was pregnant, she was given anti-Aids medicine through a US-funded programme that enabled her to deliver a healthy baby.

"Tatu and her daughter Faith are examples of the hope and compassion that is transforming lives with support" from the president's Aids-relief initiative, the White House noted in a briefing prior to Mr Bush's speech.

Even strong critics of Mr Bush are praising his efforts to combat Aids and malaria in Tanzania and other African countries.

"I don't think there's any doubt whatsoever that when history books get written, the President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief and his commitment to fighting malaria and other key infectious diseases will go down as the major positive legacy of his eight years in office," Laurie Garrett, a researcher at a liberal Washington think-tank, said in a press briefing last week.