This symposium was sponsored jointly by the Society for the History of Technology (S.H.O.T.) and by the anthropology section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (A.A.A.S.), arising from their annual meetings in Dallas, Texas, in December 1968. The session was clearly exploratory, in that the participants recognised the need for a systematic and integrative study of technology in African history, especially of its importance in defining cultural systems, in role differentiation and the division of labour between men and women in African communities, its interaction with the social and political system of a people—as demonstrated, for example, by irrigation systems—and its interrelationship with social needs and rituals in the evolution of music in Africa.

The Centre for Higher Administrative Studies in Modern Africa and Asia (C.H.E.A.M.) was founded in 1936 and is attached to the University of Paris. It has a dual role in that it ensures liaison between the public service and the University; the Centre receives not only civil servants for training and refresher courses, but also academic students for courses of study and research.

Delegates from 15 English-speaking African states together with special guests and observers attended the seventh in an annual series of public administration seminars. The first had been held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in 1962, with subsequent seminars in Nigeria, Uganda, Zambia, the U.A.R., and Ghana, each being sponsored jointly by the host government and the Ford Foundation. Their purpose is two-fold: first, to provide an opportunity for Africa's senior administrators to meet and exchange experiences, and secondly, to enable the participants to discuss common problems and to consider ways and means of improving the administration of the public services.

The secretary-general of the East African Community, Z. H. K. Birgirwenkya, formally opened this year's Social Science Council conference—the largest to date, not only in terms of the numbers attending and the papers presented, but also in terms of the number of disciplines and countries which contributed. In addition to participants from Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania, papers were presented by academics from Zambia, Malawi, Nigeria, Sudan, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Observers from the Congo (Kinshasa) were also present. Representatives of the three East African governments also participated in several sessions. John Hutton, director of economic research at Makerere, was chairman of the planning committee which organised the over-all framework of the conference, while Mrs Anna Gourlay, as secretary, did immense amounts of work to ensure that all ran smoothly.

In response to urgent local situations, many African nations have set going special programmes for youth. These programmes—largely a phenomenon of the 1960s—represent a distinct break with customary methods of meeting the needs of youth for civic education, specialised training, and community service. They are administered separately from systems of formal education and do not easily fit within the category of what is usually known as non-formal education and training. Nor do these programmes have much in common with the familiar boys' and girls' clubs of such wide variety, deriving from both kinship and modern influences, which are to be found in African villages, townships, and cities. Most of these national youth service programmes provide facilities whereby trainees can make an organised, disciplined contribution to national development during their period of service. Such service to the nation through work projects may be for a few months or may stretch over a period of one or even two years. Almost all the programmes are rural-oriented. A few cater only for girls and young women. Examples are: Jeunesse pionnière nationale (Central African Republic), Mouvement de la jeunesse (Chad), Action de rénovation rurale (Congo Brazzaville), Service civique (Mali), Formation et production (Tunisia), University Students' Service (Ethiopia), National Youth Service (Kenya), National Youth Organisation (Liberia), Young Pioneers (Malawi), Youth Service (Zambia).

With the emergence of India and African countries as free nations, it was acknowledged that they had a vital role to play in forging new relationships based on the principles of equality and mutual respect for one another. It was also considered important that they should promote friendship, understanding, and goodwill on a people-to-people basis through non-official agencies. This is how the Indian Council for Africa came into being in 1959, under the stewardship of Jawaharlal Nehru and Mrs Indira Gandhi as its Chief Patron. It was realised, however, that the Council, to be effective, should be as representative and national in character as possible, and one can therefore find a wide cross-section of Indian public opinion reflected in its membership. This includes eminent public figures, members of parliament, educationists, social workers, scholars, journalists, and businessmen.

One major problem facing the countries of Western Africa is the rapid process of urbanisation and the inability of the towns to integrate untrained and generally illiterate immigrants from the rural areas.

In March 1956, U.N.E.S.C.O. established a ‘Pilot Project for the Application of New Techniques and Methods of Education’; the Dakar seminar was held to discuss the results of this project and, in particular, the use of television in social education. Delegates attended from 11 countries—Congo (Kinshasa), Congo (Brazzaville), Ivory Coast, Dahomey, Gabon, Guinea, Upper Volta, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Togo–together with observers from interested ministries in Senegal, the I.L.O., W.H.O., the U.N. information services, O.R.S.T.O.M. (the French scientific research organisation for overseas territories), the World Association for Christian Radio and Television, the African Union of National Radio and Television Services, and the International Union for Public Health Education. Most strongly represented, of course, was U.N.E.S.C.O. itself, both by headquarters and local staff, and by the experts and consultants at work on the pilot project.

This, the fourth conference of the Association des universités partiellement ou entièrement de langue française (A.U.P.E.L.F.), was attended by more than 150 people, from a score of countries, representing not only the French-speaking universities, but also several national and international organisations. Dean Chidhi Ayari, of the Faculty of Law and Economics in Tunis, presided over the sessions.

Business Analysis for Africa is a specialised agency which organises development projects in Africa involving private business. It was created in early 1968 by specialists from the academic world and technical professions who sought to involve themselves directly in the business of economic development. The founding group included an African specialist, a tropical agriculturist, an economist, and a business lawyer. Their basic desire was to combine effectively their various talents for consulting work on development projects in Africa, for which practical research on business conditions in the United States was lacking. The agency now offers a range of co-ordinated services to firms, international agencies, African governments, and businessmen who need assistance with technical studies, financing, market research, and the promotion or negotiation of contracts.

The Spanish-African Congress for Co-operation and Trade was organised jointly by the Institute for Co-operation between Spain, Africa, and Asia (R.Y.A.C.E.) and the committee of the annual International Fair at Barcelona, where it coincided with that event. The Congress was financed partly by a grant from the Spanish Government, and partly by the Fair committee, the R.Y.A.C.E., and by voluntary contributions, some of them substantial, from businessmen in the host country.

The latest annual session of E.C.A. was also a celebration of the tenth anniversary of the organisation, in the presence of H. I. M. Haile Selassie I, Emperor of Ethiopia, and U Thant, Secretary-General of the United Nations. Only those who were there can hope to evaluate fully the proceedings, but the reflections of one who attended the five previous sessions in a working capacity, and is now able to view E.C.A. from a more distant perspective, may be not without interest.

In the economic literature, one approach to development has centred on capital accumulation. This leads to an emphasis upon public finance, foreign aid, and such-like measures designed to raise funds for governments to invest. In the sub-Saharan situation, capital accumulation poses a dilemma: on the one hand there are great institutional deficiencies for raising capital; on the other, the amount of capital which most observers feel can be raised is much less than the ‘needs’ of African societies. This concentration on the problems of capital and its accumulation is what economists call the ‘macro’ approach. It asks what over-all amounts of capital are needed. It does not in the usual case relate the total capital to its different uses.

Malagasy literary output and books about the Republic have already been dealt with in a bibliography of major importance, by Guillaume Grandidier, Bibliographie de Madagascar, vols. I and n (Paris, 1905-6 and 1935), vol. in (Tananarive, 1957), and vol. iv (in preparation). Since 1964 the national and university libraries have been working jointly on an annual bibliography, of which two volumes, for 1964 and 1965, have been published (Tananarive, 1967 and 1968). This short note does not aim to offer a complete bibliographical survey, but to provide for cultivated English-speakers a short but comprehensive list of non-specialised publications which would enable the ‘common reader’ to acquire a respectable knowledge of Madagascar.

Even the more remote and isolated villages of dynamic and disparate Africa are changing rapidly. To understand this transition, a detailed descriptive record of human activity enables comparisons to be made of different groups and of one group at different times.

The hourly, daily, and yearly behaviour patterns of rural people living in the Nsukka division of the former Eastern Region of Nigeria (now Biafra) are briefly described below. This information is based on field research carried on during 1966 in eight clusters of compounds near Nsukka town. At the time that the study was made, this was a rapidly developing Igbo village 43 miles from the regional capital city of Enugu.

This conference, organised by the African Centre for Training and Research in Administration for Development (C.A.F.R.A.D.), was attended by more than 40 participants from government departments, institutes of public administration, and écoles nationales d'administration of 14 francophone and 10 anglophone African countries; in addition, a number of observers were present. An international dimension was given by the presence of 14 consultants from a wide variety of countries, including France, the United Kingdom, India, Nigeria, the U.S.A., the Philippines, and Jamaica; the U.N. was also represented, by the head of its division of public administration.