Congo's president faces a biblical struggle to free his war-torn country from foreign aggressors, reconcile rebel movements and reunite his country.

On January 26, 2001, ten days after his father, Laurent Kabila, was assassinated by a bodyguard, Joseph Kabila was sworn in as the fourth president of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). All that the world knew of him was that he had been the head of the Congolese army for the previous two and a half years and that, at 29, he was the world's youngest head of state. The future again looked uncertain.

But that evening, in his first address to the nation, Kabila made a clear break with his father's past. He promised to engage in dialogue with the country's enemies and to support the peace process. He also said that he would liberalize the ailing diamond sector as well as the foreign exchange rate regime, and move towards democratization.

Nine months into his presidency, he has made good on most of his promises, pulling the country out of its diplomatic and economic isolation and re-engaging Congo in a substantive dialogue with the international community for the first time since the start of the war. UN troops have been deployed throughout the country, a disengagement plan agreed to in February has been completed by all parties, and the ceasefire has been respected for the first time since it was signed in 1999.

Kabila has also done away with many of the economic policies imposed by his father's government, which were responsible for the continuing economic decline; he abrogated a diamond export monopoly which had all but driven the trade underground, and floated the Congolese franc, the national currency, eliminating the nearly 700 percent spread between the official and the black market rates.

His government's re-engagement with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and the adoption of an interim economic program, which aims to rein in hyperinflation and put an end to recurring budget deficits, have already led to results. In August, the World Bank signed an agreement to reopen its office in Kinshasa for the first time in over a decade and granted a $50 million loan for the health and infrastructure sector.

Meanwhile the IMF is working on a one-year staff-supporting program which will be followed immediately by a three-year economic adjustment program. General Kalume Numbi, the minister of planning, has elaborated an ambitious national reconstruction program which targets good governance, education and infrastructure development among other areas.

Kabila also seems to realize the importance of attracting private sector investment, in particular to the crucial mining sector, and new investment and mining codes are due out later this year. These are major steps, unimaginable only eight months ago. In addition to creating new legislation which will ensure investor confidence, Kabila knows that he must also tackle the rampant corruption with which Congo has become synonymous. Already he has taken some bold steps, conducting a national audit of public enterprises, which was followed by the suspension of the boards of 50 state-run companies and service agencies.

Meanwhile, relative stability along the frontline and the government's willingness to cooperate with humanitarian aid agencies have also allowed better access to the millions of Congolese living in dire conditions in the interior of the country. Humanitarian agencies are now able to begin to assess the needs of these populations, many of whom have been without access to health care or education for the past three years. There is hope that such information will increase the donor community's response to what has been described as one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world.

But big challenges lie ahead. Kabila has pulled the country out of its isolation, put it back on track and there is hope again for the first time in several years. Yet he now has to maintain this momentum and solidify domestic and international confidence in his government's commitment to economic reform and democratization. One such opportunity is the Inter-Congolese Dialogue, which aims to bring together representatives from the government, rebel groups and members of civil society. "The Congolese people need to meet from all walks of life to talk about the future of their country," says Kabila. Talks in mid-October ended prematurely because of funding and non-attendance issues but a resumption of negotiations is scheduled for the end of November in South Africa.

On the domestic front, the formation of a new government in April was also hailed as a positive sign that Kabila was serious about improving the quality of government. Keeping on only four of his father's ministers, Kabila sacked the most controversial members of his father's government, a key move interpreted positively by both domestic and international observers as a sign that he was placing a priority on competence before politics. His new team is composed primarily of technocrats, many of who have extensive experience working in their field of expertise outside the country. Equally importantly, the government is ethnically balanced; no one group obviously dominates the cabinet.

Yet all the commitment to good governance and enhancing investment is redundant without peace. The most fundamental requirement for the rehabilitation of Congo is that the aggressors currently occupying the east of the country retire to the their borders so that the long process of rebuilding can begin. Kabila says again and again: "The capital that we are looking for is peace. Give us peace. That is what I ask from the international community." For the sake of 55 million Congolese, who have been through a traumatic decade, somebody had better be listening. Only then will Congo start to fulfill its potential as the great, beating heart of the continent.