US President Barack Obama has arrived in Senegal on the first leg of a three-nation tour of Africa.
It is Mr Obama's second visit to the continent since he became president.
He is hoping to boost economic ties with the African countries and promote good governance - all the countries he is visiting have stable democracies.
The South African leg of his trip is expected to be overshadowed by the continuing critical condition of former President Nelson Mandela.
The White House has said it will defer to the wishes of Mr Mandela's family over whether Mr Mandela is well enough to receive a visit from him in hospital.
Mr Obama is visiting Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania, excluding Kenya, where his father was born, and Nigeria, Africa's biggest oil-producer which has been hit by an Islamist insurgency.
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US officials said the indictment of Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta at the International Criminal Court on charges of fuelling violence after the 2007 election, which he denies, made it politically impossible for Mr Obama to visit the country, the AFP news agency reports.
Crowds welcomed Mr Obama's motorcade in Senegal's capital, Dakar, on Thursday cheering and waving homemade signs as he made his way to the presidential palace for a meeting with President Macky Sall, the Associated Press news agency reports.
Some in the crowd drummed and sang outside the palace gates, as Mr Sall and his wife, Marieme Faye Sall, welcomed them, it reports.
Mr Obama's decision to visit Senegal, a mainly Muslim country which is politically stable, was to acknowledge the strides it made in achieving democracy, correspondents say.
He is due to visit the Supreme Court to speak about the importance of an independent judiciary and the rule of law in Africa's development.
"It's not enough to have elections, it's not enough to have democratically elected leaders. You need to have independent judiciaries. You need to have confidence in the rule of law. You need to have efforts to combat corruption,'' Mr Obama's foreign policy adviser Ben Rhodes is quoted by AP as saying.
"You need to have efforts to combat corruption because, frankly, not only is that good for democracy and respect for human rights, but it's critical to Africa's economic growth."
Mr Obama, along with his wife and children, will also travel by ferry to Senegal's Goree Island, a memorial to Africans who were caught up in the Atlantic slave trade.
The visit is expected to be emotional because Mr Obama is the son of an African and Michelle Obama is a descendant of slaves, correspondents say.
"A visit like this by an American President, any American President, is powerful," said White House spokesman Jay Carney.
"I think that will be the case when President Obama visits and I'm sure particularly so, given that he is African American."
On Sunday, Mr Obama is expected to visit Robben Island, where Mr Mandela was jailed for 18 of the 27 years he spent in prison, on the second leg of his African tour.
However, it is unclear whether the visit will take place because of Mr Mandela's deteriorating health, correspondents say.
Mr Obama is due to end his African tour with a visit to Tanzania, where he will lay a memorial outside the US embassy in the main city, Dar es Salaam, in honour of 11 people killed in a bombing by al-Qaeda in 1998.
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