Since the original draft of this article was completed during the early summer of 1969, the attempt at radical co-operative agricultural reform initiated in Tunisia in January 1969 has been abandoned, and its main promoter, the former Minister of Planning and of the National Economy, Ahmed Ben Salah, has been deprived of all political influence, excluded from the party, and finally arrested in March 1970.

What many prominent Afrikaners heralded as a new era of independence began on 6 October 1960, when a referendum was held to determine whether or not the populace wished South Africa to become a republic. As in virtually all other aspects of national political action, only Whites could voice their opinion via the ballot. Supported by the largely Afrikaner Nationalist Party and opposed by the predominantly English-stock United Party, the referendum, passed by approximately 850,000 to 776,000 votes, probably constituted one of the best indices of the relative strength of Afrikaner and non-Afrikaner elements among South Africa's ruling White polity.1 This dichotomy within the White elite and the friction which still sustains it have their roots in the late nineteenth century, when the Briton vanquished the Boer. Now, the situation has largely reversed itself while the animosities remain.

The need for regional economic integration in Africa was appreciated by most African leaders soon after their countries had become independent sovereign states early in the 1960s. Although they did not always make enough distinction between economic integration and political unity (indeed some, particularly the leaders of the so-called Casablanca group of countries, held the doctrinaire view that political unity and the formation of a United States of Africa must precede economic integration), and although very little has been achieved in either field, yet the past decade is likely to go down in African history as the decade of economic and political integration rather than the development decade.1 However, if positive results are to be achieved in the 1970s, the old doctrinaire attitude must give way to a more pragmatic approach, which neither demands political union as a precondition for economic integration nor takes an all-or-nothing attitude to the latter.

Physically, culturally, and ethnically the Republic of the Sudan is a microcosm of Africa. Its achievements, problems, and potentialities are in many respects typical of those of other African or Afro-Asian countries—particularly the belt of ‘Sudanic’ states which runs across the continent from the Horn and the Red Sea in the East to the Atlantic Ocean in the West. Thus, like the great majority of Afro-Asian countries, the Sudan has been subjected to alien rule for considerable periods during its modern history; its existing boundaries, administrative institutions, and cultural outlook have been largely moulded by its colonial masters; it developed a nationalist movement whose primary objective was the achievement of independence; and, since the fulfilment of that objective, it has been faced with a host of problems, chief amongst which is the erosion of nationalism, in the sense of loyalty to the homeland as a whole, and the resurgence or development of a variety of particularistic tendencies, loyalty to which has in some cases equalled or even surpassed loyalty to the nationalism under whose banner independence was won.

The political status of strangers in African societies, particularly in urban areas, has been insufficiently analysed.1 This may be partly because studies of African politics and political development have been dominated by a conceptual framework which contrasts two types of society, the ‘traditional’ or ‘tribal’ and the ‘modern’ or ‘developed’. The former usually implies a rural community with a relatively self- sufficient political system.2 In such a society, the traditional leaders are usually associated with a particular ethnic group and territory; and their authority may be derived from sacred sources, such as tradition itself, ties to land, or genealogical links to ancestors. In the ‘modern’ society, leadership is assumed to be ‘rational’ and ‘secular’, oriented towards western rather than traditional values.3 Political development has often been somewhat vaguely conceived as the transformation of a society from the traditional to the modern type.

Rural development in tropical Africa is taking place on two broad fronts. First, there are the major schemes of improvement inspired by the economic planners of government or international agencies. These range in size from a few massive resettlement projects, such as those associated with major dams (the Kariba or the Volta), to the medium-scale exercises in improved agriculture, co-operative farming and village regrouping which are common in most of the newly independent African states. There is a second type of rural development, however, which is much less obvious and goes largely unrecorded. This involves the apparently piecemeal diffusion of minor services—shops, clinics, schools, agricultural demonstration units, transport and marketing facilities—little of which is planned. Even the co-ordination between public and private sectors, and between the government departments involved in the extension of these services, is limited and frequently ineffectual.

In 1962, shortly after independence, the Government of Mali established the Institute of ‘Human Sciences’, thereby replacing the former Institutfrançais d'Afrique noire in Soudan, known as ‘Centre IFAN’ pour le Soudan. The National Archives, the National Library, and the National Museum, with collections inherited from I.F.A.N., were reorganised, and at the same time three research Divisions were created: for History and Civilisation, Linguistics and Literature, and Socio-Economics.

Following the establishment at Makerere University College of a postgraduate statistical training course which will lay heavy emphasis on survey techniques, the Social Science Division of the Institute for Development Studies, Nairobi, is not, for the time being, pursuing its intention to establish a survey research centre. For this and other reasons the Centre last year decided against the acquisition of the Marco Survey data archives, reported in this Journal, VII, 2, 1969.

Before commenting on the situation in separate countries, it is useful to look briefly at the over-all state of natural resources science in Africa. This was reviewed in detail six years ago at a U.N.E.S.C.O. conference in Lagos and there has been no major change in the picture of fragmentation of effort, with as yet no effective machinery for co-operation. Some rather slow pro. gress was made by the C.C.T.A. among the countries south of the Sahara towards the co-ordination and sharing of scarce scientific resources, but this initiative has not yet been effectively regained by its successor organisation, the Scientific and Technical Research Committee of the Organisation of African Unity.

Throughout the developing world today the accent is upon economic growth. No reasonable man can question this emphasis while inequalities among nations, and inequalities within nations, remain so glaring. Inevitable and healthy as this may be, it raises one fundamental question, Growth for what? Growth for growth's sake? Growth for those astute enough to profit from it? Or growth as an essential concomitant of political stability and social justice for the whole community? There are other searching questions. Is democracy compatible with economic growth? Are human rights and civil liberties, free enterprise and free trade unionism, compatible with growth? Where they conflict, which comes first? or what reasonable compromise can be made?

Faced with declining earnings from the export of agricultural products, with rising population, and with an urgent need for accelerated economic growth and structural change, many African countries are today searching for new channels through which they can supplement their foreign-exchange earnings. One source of rapidly growing importance is tourism, which already plays a decisive role in the economic development of some countries.

This conference was held at Makerere University College under the auspices of the World Order Models Project, in association with the World Law Fund. Those who presented papers came from Canada, Congo-Kinshasa, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, U.S.A., Zambia, the East African Community, and the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa. Distinguished visitors included Professor W. Abraham, the Ghanaian philosopher, and the noted African poet, Okor p'Bitek, who both came from the United States.

At the outset of the 1970s it is estimated that there are upwards of one million refugees in Africa, with about equal numbers from independent African states, and from non-self-governing and minority-ruled states. The largest single group are the Angolan refugees in Congo-Kinshasa, now estimated to number 400,000. Other large groups of refugees are from Rwanda, Sudan, and Guinea-Bissau. There are also smaller groups from Congo-Kinshasa, Ethiopia, and Zambia, as well as from Mozambique, South Africa, Namibia, and Rhodesia.

Lagos, the capital of Nigeria since 1914, was in 1954 declared Federal Territory under the direct administration of the central Government, in order to satisfy demands that it should not, like some other federal capitals, be controlled by any of the constituent units. But, when new States were created in 1967, this Federal Territory was merged with neighbouring areas to become Lagos State, with headquarters in Lagos, which was retained as the Federal capital. This development raises again the issue of protecting Nigeria's capital from control by any of the constituent units of the Federation; should this be done by declaring Lagos Federal Territory again? or by choosing another site? These questions involve a consideration of the process by which Lagos was chosen as the Federal capital, of its effectiveness under present conditions, and of the location of a possible alternative, neutral capital of Nigeria.

Much of the literature, scholarly and journalistic, about certain aspects of the United Nations operation in the Congo has been marked by the twin short. comings of a lack of authentic information on the one hand and the ignoring of such information, even where it is readily available, on the other.

There is not much that can be done for the time being about the lack of information, especially in view of the confidential relationship of the United Nations Secretariat with Member States, which inevitably means that the Secretary-General's position often to some extent goes by default before public opinion. This is a pity, but the Secretariat obviously could not operate if governments could not rely on its discretion, which they are entitled to take for granted.