ADDIS ABABA -- The head of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) said on Saturday he was confident that the African Union (AU), which will replace the OAU in July, would promote peace on the continent, Reuters said.

In a message to mark the pan-African body's 39th anniversary, OAU Secretary General Amara Essy said to achieve economic progress, the continent must first try to end its many conflicts.

The OAU has long been criticized as ineffectual and old-fashioned so African leaders resolved in 1999 to replace it with a more focused African Union loosely styled on the European Union model of political and economic cooperation.

"The constitutive act of the African Union intends to give a new impetus aimed at promoting peace and security, which are indispensable for the economic and social progress of our continent," Essy said in the Ethiopian capital.

Of the OAU's 53 members, 47 have ratified the constitutive act of the new body, which eventually will include a pan-African parliament, a Central Bank and a court.

Some critics see little progress in creating the new body and recommend postponing the transformation of the OAU into an ambitious AU.

But Essy said he was optimistic the AU would be successfully launched at a July summit in Durban, South Africa, and added that it would provide a new impetus to end the continent's conflicts.

Among the conflicts he listed were those in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi and the Great Lakes region and instability in Central Africa and the Horn of Africa, "where conflicts in Somalia and southern Sudan continue to prevail".

He appealed to Africans to close ranks within the framework of the African Union "so that Africa can avoid being further marginalized".