The African Union's decisive action in swiftly resolving a tricky dispute over Sudan at a summit this week boosted its credibility and underlined a break with the past.
The way in which the argument over Sudan's claim to the rotating chair of the body was swiftly defused - handing it to Ghana instead - was a far cry from some previous AU summits and even more so from those of its discredited predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity. That body's meetings were notorious for interminable wrangling and a reluctance to criticise member governments, leading to its replacement in 2002 by the AU.
"It is fair enough to say there has been a change of climate in the AU compared to the OAU. ... I don't think it should be underplayed," said Patrick Smith, editor of Africa Confidential newsletter.
Before the Addis Ababa summit began, the African leaders faced on one hand Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, adamant that he should be given the chairmanship promised a year ago when he was excluded because of the bloodshed in Sudan's vast Darfur region.
On the other side was a chorus of international opinion demanding that Sudan be again deprived of the leadership because Darfur's violence, far from abating, was getting worse and included continued atrocities by pro-government militia.
A year ago a summit in Khartoum was derailed by the Sudan dispute which eclipsed the official agenda. Congo Republic was eventually awarded the chair and a promise made to Bashir that he would get it this year.
Many analysts expected something similar in Addis Ababa. But it took the AU leaders only three quarters of the first day to decide Sudan would again be deprived of the leadership and it would go to Ghana, seen as a good candidate because 2007 is the 50th anniversary of when it became the first sub-Saharan nation to end colonial rule.
Far from splitting the organisation or provoking a noisy walkout, Sudan conceded and said it had agreed to withdraw in the interests of unity, a masterstroke by the group of respected leaders who engineered the deal. Senior Sudanese officials said right up to the eve of the summit that they would not back down.
Delegates said South African President Thabo Mbeki and the Ethiopian host, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, worked on the deal before the summit even started and it was sealed by a respected group of seven African "wise men" including Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo.
What is not clear is whether the expert diplomacy in Addis Ababa signalled a completely new way of doing things or was a one-off because of the special circumstances of Darfur, where the organisation's credibility was at stake.
"I personally think it is a big advance for the AU as at last the sacred cow of 'sovereignty' is not seen as the be-all and end-all of inter-African politics and that what goes on behind borders matters," said Dr Ian Taylor of St Andrews University in Scotland. "This is a big change from the past."
But while the African leaders could pride themselves on defusing the chairmanship issue, they were less successful in making progress on getting peacekeeping troops into Somalia and Darfur, the top two items on their agenda.
As the summit ended, African nations had still pledged only 4,000 troops for a proposed 8,000-strong peacekeeping force in Somalia and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon failed to get approval from Bashir for deployment of 3,000 UN personnel to support a struggling African Union mission in Darfur.
Two sources in the Sudanese delegation to the summit said there were "serious reservations" about Ban's proposed second phased deployment of personnel and equipment. Issues specific to Darfur, where experts say 200,000 people have died in four years of conflict and 2.5 million been forced from their homes, had created the powerful groundswell in the AU against a Sudanese chairmanship.
One delegate, who asked not to be named, said a powerful factor was Chad's threat to withdraw from the AU if Bashir became chairman. Relations between the two countries have been strained since the Darfur crisis spilled over their borders. The delegate said the threat by Darfur rebels that overstretched AU peacekeepers in Darfur could become a target if Sudan took the chair also weighed on the presidents.
"The key thing is, the serious leadership element within the AU could not stomach someone with 200,000 dead people on his hands being head. We saw that with (Ugandan dictator) Idi Amin and the OAU in the 70s. It made the organisation a laughing stock," Taylor said.
Smith said a major factor in Addis Ababa "was that everybody involved wanted a quick resolution to avoid a repeat of last year when the tussle over the chair undermined the whole meeting. Not only that, it worsened the north-south division within the AU."
Smith said reform proposals for the AU include a rule that no country where peacekeepers are deployed can assume the chair. If such a rule was not adopted, then "this will come back and haunt them again," he said.