The Institute of Development Studies organised an international conference on this topic at the University of Sussex, Brighton, from 12 to 16 September 1971. A background paper prepared by the convenors, Richard Jolly and Rita Cruise O'Brien, outlined the purpose as follows:

Urban unemployment in Africa is a theme on which much has been written in recent years but which is still ‘in fashion’ and of considerable importance to a broad range of scholars and policy makers…there is a great risk of dissipating one's efforts over that whole field. In planning this conference, we have tried therefore to be guided by three dominant principles: (a) to restrict the topics for discussion so as to focus on what seem to us important issues, on which further understanding could be generated by a bout of concentrated thought, analysis of data and discussion; (b) to invite a limited number of people engaged in current research or involved on the spot with investigation or policy-making; (c) to request authors of papers to start at what might be called the current conventional wisdom among specialists and to build their analysis from there… It will be assumed that persons attending the conference are generally in touch with recent literature on the subject.