There is one sense in which African unity already exists. There is a sentiment of ‘African-ness’, a feeling of mutual involvement, which pervades all the political and cultural life of the continent. Nationalist leaders all over Africa feel themselves to be part of a greater movement; they recognise a special responsibility to the political unit in which they happen to belong, but feel personally involved in the triumphs and set-backs of all other African countries. There is, in other words, an emotional unity which finds expression in, among other things, concepts such as the ‘African personality’, and in a tendency to consult together at international conferences.

Problems of taxation, in connexion with economic development, are generally discussed from two different points of view, which involve quite distinct, and often conflicting, considerations: the point of view of incentives and the point of view of resources. Those who believe that it is the lack of adequate incentives which is mainly responsible for insufficient growth and investment are concerned with improving the tax system through the granting of additional concessions of various kinds, with less regard to the unfavourable effects on the public revenue. Those who believe that insufficient growth and investment is mainly a consequence of a lack of resources are chiefly concerned with increasing the resources available for investment through additional taxation, even at the cost of worsening its disincentive effects.

This article sets out to portray the mood, the aspirations, the determination, and the main problems of contemporary Africa. To some extent it is necessary to distinguish between colonial Africa and free Africa, although the differences between the two should not be exaggerated.

Agriculture is the main sphere of material production in all African countries. It is generally recognised that all African countries, excepting the South African Republic, belong to the group of under-developed agrarian countries. It is impossible to define the exact share of agriculture in the total annual output because of the predominance of the subsistence economy, and the almost total absence of statistics on this phase of labour. As a rule, the available statistics underestimate the share of agricultural output. Some idea about the role of agriculture in African economies can be gained from the data on the distribution of rural and urban population. Though in the past 20 years there has been considerable movement from villages to towns, nevertheless the rural population in various countries still constitutes from 67 per cent in Egypt (1957) to 96 per cent in Togo (1956). Only in the South African Republic is the urban population nearly half (46·6 per cent in 1951) of the whole population.1

‘Blackness is not absence, but refusal’ said Aimé Césaire. The only trouble with refusal as a literary posture is that it is inclined to produce writing which is concerned with public gesture rather than with private and particular observation. Until recently, the great bulk of French writing by Africans could be fairly labelled as romantic, rhetorical, and directed at general rather than individual situations. That is to say, there was a preference for romantically revolutionary statements about ‘the situation of the negro’, rather than exploratory statements about the situation of the individual writer at a particular moment in space and time.

This is an exploratory approach to the question of what universities have to do with nation-building in Africa, and to the more general question of how people learn to behave like nationals.

It is not, I imagine, necessary to argue in this Journal (whose birth I welcome) that the study of African politics should never be separated from the study of African history. There was a time when the political institutions of African states (except in a few special cases, such as Ethiopia) meant ‘colonial political institutions, together with such indigenous African institutions as had been permitted to survive within the colonial framework’. For students of colonial government the study of African history had no obvious relevance. For those who wished to explain such institutions as Legislative Councils in British-controlled territories, Communes Mixtes in French-controlled territories, or the Conseil de Gouvernement in the Belgian Congo, the history of the European state which had imposed the institution was understandably more significant than the histories of the African peoples upon whom it had been imposed. As for such indigenous African political systems as had survived, in a modified form, within the colonial administrative structure, their study was—by a kind of unwritten convention—left to the social anthropologists, whose historical interests varied according to the character of the system and the approach of the anthropologist.

I.F.A.N. was first established by the central government of l'Afrique Occidentale Française in 1936, as a successor to the Comité d'etudes historiques et scientifiques. At the time of the break-up of the A.O.F. federation, in March 1959, it became an Institute of the University of Dakar, and since then has been financed by the French Ministry of National Education.

This Program was established in 1954. It is inter-disciplinary in character, and has the following primary purposes:

1. To provide an opportunity for students at Howard University to acquire as a part of their general education an objective view of the present position of Africa in the modern world, and an understanding of its economic, social, and political problems.

2. To enable African students attending the University to view objectively and in a larger perspective the problems of their own continent.

3. To provide training and education for a small number of graduate students, who will either continue their studies at other centres, or will be prepared to work in Africa.

This symposium was organised by the Inter-African Committee on Linguistics—a committee of C.C.T.A. whose chairman is Professor M. Guthrie. It was planned to coincide with the second meeting of the Committee, which accepted responsibility for implementing the recommendations of the symposium after approval by member governments of C.C.T.A.

‘A truly amazing achievement by a truly amazing man.’ This was the verdict of one visiting economist upon this symposium and upon the man who conceived and organised the whole project, Dunduzu Chisiza, then Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Finance in the new Malawi Government. The imaginativeness of the concept, the painstaking planning of every detail, and the whole-hearted co-operation he obtained from all involved—these are a measure of the loss to Africa resulting from Mr Chisiza's death in September 1962.

The purpose of this meeting, convened by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (E.C.A.), was to consider the position and prospects of Africa's major agricultural export commodities and to examine possible national and international measures for commodity stabilisation. Over 50 representatives attended from 17 African countries; the chairman was Mr O. I. Afe of Nigeria, and the vice-chairman was M Medoune Fall of Senegal.

African studies have hitherto been largely deficient in the attention given to that central element of culture which we Europeans call ‘art’ or ‘the arts’, but which traditional Africa did not compartmentalise either in name or in fact. Since the great changes through which Africa is passing are almost all in the direction of materialism and international conformity, it is not surprising, but none the less regrettable, that even anthropologists have usually accorded to African art a peripheral, though not always unhonoured status. This has now been boldly remedied by the inauguration in Souther Rhodesia of what it is hoped will be a regular series of international con gresses of African culture.

This U.N.E.S.C.O conference proved to be a most valuable complement to the Addis Ababa conference of May 1961, which had dealt with African education in general. Delegations attended from 31 countries, as well as observers from 13 non-African states and from international organisations and private foundations. Interest was concentrated mainly upon university development.

In recent years many countries in tropical Africa have seen the growth of an urgent problem: unemployment among young people. Although in some areas local unemployment has been a continuing problem, this new, more serious form has emerged as a result of accelerated social change and demands difficult policy decisions. The problem arises from the rapid expansion of basic education without widespread facilities for further education and without many possibilities for labour absorption in the modern sector of the economy. Frequently the effect of primary schooling is to turn young people away from traditional means of making a living: those in villages reject farming and migrate to the cities to compete for the few wage-paid jobs. Each year the number of school leavers increases and the pool of unemployed grows.

This independent research body was formed in March 1959, and consists of a small group of professional economists in the academic, financial, and industrial spheres working in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia. It aims to provide a forum for informed discussion and analysis of economic problems. The general theme of the Group's work is the development of the three territories of the Federation. The chairman is Professor W. L. Taylor of the Department of Economics, University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.

The idea of a permanent co-operating body of Christian Churches in Africa dates back to the first All Africa Church Conference arranged at Ibadan, Nigeria, in 1958, by the International Missionary Council. This brought together some 200 representatives of church bodies from 25 African countries, the majority being African church leaders rather than missionaries. It was the most representative gathering of African Christians that had ever met together. Here for the first time the Church in Africa found its voice.