ASAUK's conference last September on ‘Whites in Africa - Past, Present and Future’ aroused suspicions in at least one correspondent. Addressing himself to the ‘Pink ASAUK’, and enclosing a cutting from West Africa in which news of the forthcoming conference was omenously included on the same page as a report on ‘Freetown’s Rubbish Plan, the writer made two points. ‘Human beings are citizens, not colours or numbers as.your hollow minds suggest’; ‘Now that Africa is nearly free from imperialism and exploitation … dishonest intellectuals from British institutions are conspiring to draw a new map of Africa’.

The first of these points was regularly made and as regularly demonstrated throughout the conference. It did indeed turn out to be very difficult to correlate ‘whiteness’ with any particular range of activities.

Having four years ago reviewed C.C. Aguolu‘s Nigeria, a comprehensive bibliography in the humanities and social sciences 1900-1971, we could not resist the temptation, ‘where angels fear to tread’, to compare it with the recently published Nigerian contribution to humanistic studies by B. O. Aboyade, making it an excuse to cogitate on the place of the Humanities in the Nigerian university system.

To C. C. Aguolu the area of humane studies included both those which take the individual as the centre for investigation, i.e. the Arts, and those which are concerned with the group the Social Sciences: this seems all the more legitimate, as the latter derive from the former. For the Social Sciences have sprung and separated from the Arts within this century, as witnessed by the distinct faculties serving them.

The 4th NDRC was held at Strathclyde University on September 26-29, 1978, and attracted some 200 participants from Britain and overseas. As such, it was probably the largest and most widely representative of these biennial meetings to date, providing a stimulating forum for discussion and exchange of ideas on a wide variety of topics. The range of seminars covered such traditional fields as health, labour, rural and regional development, technology, multinationals, teaching development studies; newer topics included science, socialist development models, historical dimensions, nature of development studies, information and information activities. The following brief analysis is not intended to be a summary of the Conference but rather to highlight certain trends which, to a librarian and Africanist, warrant fuller consideration by developmentalists, Africanists and documentalists.

The National Institute of Development and Cultural Research (NIR), of which the Documentation Unit is a part, was established in 1975 under the sponsorship of the Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation and as an integral part of the University College of Botswana. This was followed by the signing of an agreement between the Botswana Government and the Foundation in which terms of reference with regard to day-to-day functioning of the Institute were stipulated. The Documentation Unit was the only Section when NIR was established but in 1978, the Research and Training Unit was formed. The aims of NIR as outlined in the pamphlet “National Institute of Development and Cultural Research Aims and Activities” are:- “to stimulate, co-ordinate, implement and follow-up research that will contribute to processes which ultimately will benefit large and less privileged parts of the population of Botswana and/or its peoples.

Following recent discussions in the ASA Council, pressing the need for more frequent one-day symposia than has been the practise in the past, on Saturday, 17th March, Dr. Paul Richards and Dr. Shula Marks organised a symposium devoted to a discussion on the role of science and technology in the development of African agriculture. Planned in the belief that a key function of the African Studies Association is to bring together natural and social scientists, the debate raised a number-of issues of central concern. Despite the short notice with which it was organised, and a snow blizzard which hit much of the country the previous day, some sixty members and students participated, drawn from as far afield as Aberdeen and Edinburgh.

An International Prize for World Development has been created by the King Baudouin Foundation. The Prize has been set up in deference to the wishes of H.M. the King of the Belgians. It will normally be awarded every two years and will be given for the first time in Autumn 1980, on the occasion of the 150th Anniversary of Belgium and to mark the 50th birthday of King Baudouin.

The King Baudouin Prize for International Development has been established to encourage individuals or organisations, irrespective of their nationality, who have made an important contribution to the development of the Third World and to the promotion of solidarity and good relations between industrialized and developing countries.

This prize is worth three million Beligan francs (about £50,000). As a rule the prize money will be granted to a single person or organization. It may exceptionally be split equally between several people.