Now Tony Blair takes a job boosting Rwanda's economy

He is to help Rwanda attract private investment as it seeks to boost its economy.

Mr Blair was in the central African country this weekend for talks with its president, Paul Kagame, about the challenges facing Rwanda's development.

He will now use his international status to promote the opportunities on offer there to foreign investors.

The ex-prime minister has agreed to carry out the work for free.

There is growing speculation that Mr Blair is angling to become the first permanent president of the European Union.

He is already a Middle East envoy and has also taken up lucrative positions with the financial firms JP Morgan and Zurich which both earn him more than £2million a year.

At a press conference yesterday in the Rwandan capital Kigali, Mr Blair said it was an 'exciting' time to be engaged with the country's development.

"I think the fascinating thing about Rwanda is that it's a country that has gone through a terrible and traumatic experience but has rebuilt itself," he said. "It stands now in a situation where people want to take it to a new and higher level of development. Any help that I can give in that is a privilege."

Mr Blair has held a number of meetings with president Kagame since he left Number 10 last June.

The pair are said to be long-standing friends, and aides said his new commitment should be seen in the context of his wider interest in Africa.

Mr Kagame said: 'Tony brings a lot of experience, capabilities and the connections he has internationally, to fit very well into what we are trying to do and renders invaluable support to achieve results that we want.'

Rwanda has transformed itself since 1994 when the ruling majority Hutus murdered more than 800,000 opposition Tutsis.

The genocide ended only when Hutu extremists were overthrown by Mr Kagame, then a guerilla leader, and his forces.

The country's stability and development over the last decade have been held up by the international community as a model for an African continent battling with poverty and corruption.