When French administration was established in West Africa, largely at the turn of the century (with the principal exception of parts of Senegal, which have been French-administered for some 300 years), the existing social structures ranged widely from some quite simple, egalitarian groups to some very highly stratified and centralised political systems, often conquest states where the distinction between ‘noble’ and ‘commoner’ was clearly recognised and had consequences in the style of life and the possibilities of a career.

The attainment of independence by Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania has posed new and perplexing problems for the 360,000 Asians settled in these countries.1 They have to adapt themselves to new political régimes, which are determined to carry out far-reaching changes in the traditional roles of the different races in East Africa. In order to understand fully the complexity and magnitude of the problems faced by the Asian community in East Africa, it is essential to contrast the colonial pattern of race relations with that envisaged by the new African leaders.

There is a very close relationship between education and the economic growth of modern nations.1 Most of us also accept the slogan that the real basis for social, economic, and political progress is the development of the skills, knowledge, and creative capacities of people. These, of course, are ‘self-evident truths’. But by themselves, they really offer little practical justification for tangible investment in education projects.

Most new African countries have faced the problem of overhauling and refurbishing their local administrative machinery to cope with a variety of new tasks, and to fill the gap left by the removal of expatriate district officers. Indeed, it is precisely because this problem is not unique to Tanzania that students of government outside East Africa may be interested in an account of its regional administration.1

Far out in the Indian Ocean, stretched like a string of pearls between the Grand Ile of Madagascar and the coast of East Africa, lies one of the world's most beautiful groups of islands, one of its most intriguing civilisations, and one of its most puzzling territories: the Comoro Islands. The archipelago is altogether one-quarter the size of Corsica. The four main islands—Mayotte, Anjouan, Mohéli, and Grande Comore, surrounded by numerous smaller isles and coral reefs—between them cover an area of only 852 square miles (2,336 sq. km.). The total population at the time of the most recent census in 1958 amounted to 183,133, with 90,790 on Grande Comore, 61,815 on Anjouan, 23,364 on Mayotte, and 7,164 on Moheli. The latest estimate, for 1963, gives a total of about 200,000. Tiny as they are, apparently unaffected by the wind of change, and isolated from the main tide of the world events, the islands still present a microcosm of the problems encountered by the developing countries on the mainland. They too are undergoing the difficult transition from a colonial system to independence, and have to reckon with the strong traditional structures of a civilisation left largely untouched by French administration, which still influences the lives of the mass of the population.

Certainly more books have been written on what was once French North Africa than on most regions of the continent. Yet of the volumes written prior to the independence of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, how few are now worth reading! This judgement is not retrospective; the evidence was at hand long ago.1 That admirable compendium of scholarly accomplishments, Jean Alazard et al., Histoire et historiens de l'Algerie (Paris, Alcan, 1931), tells us that, 100 years after the French conquest of that country, there was little interest in studying the living society of the Muslim majority except as it posed legal, administrative or philological problems. After World War II, the President of the Algiers Court of Appeal, Georges Surdon, noted in La France en Afrique du nord (Algiers, Edition Alger republicain, 1946) that ‘all the books which have been devoted to the study of the implantation of the French in Algeria have given a fanciful or insufficient sketch of the native population’. Yet one of the basic arguments of his book is that since Arab authority is traditionally based on the tribe rather than on any geographical unit, Arab nationalism in North Africa stems from invalid assumptions. If one wants to learn about the problems of contemporary North Africans, less than a score of works published in French or English before Libya gained independence in 1951, Morocco and Tunisia in 1956, and Algeria in 1962 still remain essential reading.2

Bang in the middle of a dialogue now going on about African culture—its roots, its contemporary values and relevance, and its future—Chemchemi Creative Centre has been born. This has come into our midst as a sister to the three Mbari writers' and artists' clubs in Nigeria; it will be inspired by the same aims, although the methods of achieving them will obviously be guided by local national conditions.

This College—Højskole for Udviklingslandene—opened in August 1964 with 22 students from six countries of the eastern half of Africa, who had come for a four-month course. Behind this lies a story of years of effort by many people, principally Danes, and more especially those within the folk high- school movement, who were persuaded and inspired by the zeal of the indefatigable Dr Peter Manniche, who conceived the original idea. This was to aid the developing nations by inviting some of their citizens to come and study how Denmark itself had in the past developed from poverty to affluence by the efforts of its own people; and to provide a college for this purpose, organised along the lines of a folk high-school community.

Organised in 1958 and directed by a committee of 30 business, professional, and civic leaders in the United States and South Africa, the Leader Exchange Program increasingly is fulfilling its mission of building a ‘bridge of understanding and co-operation’ by means of private, non-governmental efforts. In both countries, lack of accurate information and often sensational news reporting have not contributed to an atmosphere of genuine understanding of each other's problems and of the progress being made toward solving these problems. No attempt is made by the Program to mould opinion. Rather, the aim is to permit ‘exchangees’ to see for themselves and to enable them to have frank, face-to-face discussions with a variety of individuals representing the widest possible range of outlooks. Not only have effective lines of communication been established between university professors, journalists, medical doctors, social workers, business executives, artists, authors, and scientists in the two countries, but these lines are continually being strengthened and expanded, due in large part to the enthusiasm of the exchangees, who do not regard their visit as a ‘one-shot’ contact with the other country.

This conference was attended by 115 participants, representing 29 member governments, three other governments and the Holy See, six units of the U.N. family, and three other organisations. Reviewing the situation over the past two years, it was clear that agriculture was not yet playing its full part in the economic and social development of Africa. The role of agriculture is to provide food and raw materials for domestic consumption; to earn and save foreign exchange; to supply capital, labour, and raw materials for the development of other sectors of the economy; and to ensure the market for other industries. Yet, taking the region as a whole, the rate of increase in production, and especially in food production, appeared to have slowed down in recent years, and had barely sufficed to keep up with the growth of population. Food imports had increased rapidly in some countries, using up scarce supplies of foreign exchange that were needed to import capital goods essential for the execution of economic development plans. Earnings from agricultural exports, which account for the great bulk of the foreign exchange earnings of almost all African countries, had risen only slowly, and the trend had been aggravated by lower prices for such commodities on world markets, and by a rise in prices of the industrial products imported by African countries.

This conference, financed by the Rockefeller Foundation, was attended by the research directors of the following centres: Institut de recherches économiques et sociales (I.R.E.S.), Lovanium University, Congo; Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research (N.I.S.E.R.), University of Ibadan; U.N. African Institute for Economic Development and Planning (I.D.E.P.), Dakar, Senegal; Economic Development Institute (E.D.I.), University of Nigeria, Nsukka; Institut de rcience économique appliquée (I.S.E.A.), Dakar; Department of Economics, University of Khartoum, Sudan; proposed Bureau of Economic Research, the University College, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; East African Institute of Social Research (E.A.I.S.R.), Makerere University College, Uganda; and the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute, Lusaka, Zambia. In addition, there were the director of the Economic Development Division of the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa (E.C.A.), Addis Ababa; the head of the Training Division of the O.E.C.D. Development Centre, Paris; a member of the Institute of Economic Research of the National University of Chile, Santiago; and two representatives of the Rockefeller Foundation, New York.

This conference was attended by delegations from all the countries of West Africa other than the Ivory Coast, most of them led by ministers; and the executive secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa, Mr R. K. A. Gardiner, attended in person.

The conference had a dual origin: one was a series of meetings convened by President Diori Hamani of Niger, and serviced by a group of experts led by Professor de Bernis of the University of Grenoble; the other was the work of the E.C.A., starting with its publication of Industrial Growth in Africa (New York, 1963), followed by its mission on industrial co-ordination in West Africa, and a conference on iron and steel held in Monrovia in 1963, and culminating in a series of specialised studies. The final papers for the conference were prepared in collaboration between the E.C.A. secretariat and Professor de Bernis' group.

American scholarly organisations have evolved highly institutionalised forms of ritual, the peak being the annual meeting, when scholars from all parts of the country converge on an antiquated and inconvenient hotel in one of the larger cities for a three-day conference. The ostensible purpose is the delivery of many papers, supposedly representing contemporary scholarly interests, though some are so phenomenally thin or irrelevant that one suspects that they were written in haste, merely to justify a claim for travel expenses. There are usually so many papers that they are read consecutively, and participants drift from one panel to another, often pausing for conversation or rest in the hotel lobbies. Ancillary purposes of the annual meeting are to elect new officers, meet old friends, recruit staff, search for better positions, inspect new publications, or merely to be seen.

The purpose of this annual conference was to give an opportunity for social scientists doing research in East Africa to meet, report to professional colleagues on the results of their studies, and participate in criticism and discussion. The 100-odd participants were drawn mainly from the three University Colleges, but also from other institutions, both inside and outside East Africa. A somewhat arbitrary classification of the papers presented gives 14 in economics, 6 in sociology and anthropology, 5 in agriculture, 10 in political science, and 5 in manpower planning and education. The papers were almost all on East African topics, frequently showing an interdisciplinary approach, and many were concerned directly or indirectly with problems of development. This short note cannot summarise or even mention all the papers; it gives only a selective and superficial sketch of what was presented and discussed at the conference.

Some time ago I became involved in one of Britain's minor export industries, the G.C.E. Advanced Level examinations (overseas). A minor industry in terms of economic return, but a major one in terms of the export of ideas, and it is with the actual concepts that are exported that I wish to concern myself. It may be as well to declare the limitations of my sample—about 800 scripts from Ghana and Nigeria over the last two years—and to make it perfectly plain that the defects I attempt to demonstrate in the students' understanding of British politics stem from British and not African errors.