Since it began active programs in 1951, the Ford Foundation has had two principal sorts of interest in the areas outside the Western world. One is to help these areas in the development efforts that are now their great preoccupation. There is a division of the Foundation called the Overseas Development Program that has this purpose. Another interest is in American capacities for understanding and dealing with the non-Western world. The Foundation's International Training and Research Program pursues this aim, through grants to universities and other academic organizations, through an area training fellowship program, and through other means. A third division of the Foundation, the International Affairs Program, supports non-academic American organizations concerned with international affairs, and adds other sorts of activities through in Europe and a general concern with peace and international order.

President Eisenhower's timely proposal for aid to African education through the family of United Nations organizations is potentially one of the great ideas of the twentieth century. It comes at a point in history when the need for mutual understanding between the United States and Africa has never been greater.

Aware of this growing need, the United States National Commission for UNESCO decided two years ago to devote its Eighth National Conference in 1961 to the vital task of fostering better relations between the United States and Africa. The National Commission was established by Act of Congress in 1946 to further the aims of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural organization. It is composed of 100 members, 60 of whom represent national organizations having a total membership of over 30,000,000. The Commission believes that the Eighth National Conference can best achieve its objectives by concentrating on relevant educational, scientific, and cultural issues, with emphasis on education. The Conference will focus primarily on Africa of the Sahara.

The Africa Collections at Stanford University are divided between the University Libraries, including the Food Research Institute's department library, and the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace. The Hoover Institution maintains a major part of the Stanford Africa Collection, but its holdings are complemented by those of the University Libraries. During the past year, the Curator of the Africa Collection at the Hoover Institution has attempted to stimulate University interest in Africa and to coordinate acquisitions. This program has been successful, and a reasonably full coverage of African materials is now assured. The University Library has accepted responsibility for the fields of art, ethnography, geography, linguistics, philosophy, religion, sociology, statistics, and technical documents, as well as all African material before 1870.

The recent dramatic emergence of tropical Africa to the center stage of international affairs has raised African studies to a position of grave national concern. If the new African nations are faced with the problems of adjusting in all too short a time to the responsibilities and tasks of independence, we on our side are faced with equally grave problems in meeting our responsibilities to them. In diplomatic relations, business and industrial contacts, and education and technical assistance programs, our critical need now is for a detaile understanding of these diverse nations.

This report on American university programs on Africa is concerned with the types of programs developed during the past decade, the accomplishments of the program and their impact on Africa, the United States and elsewhere in the world. Finally, some suggestions for future action on the part of American universities toward Africa are offered.

The material for this report is based on documents and on interviews with well over a thousand informants, over half of them in Africa. Data were gathered mainly during the latter half of 1958, although new material continued to be gathered less systematically up to the moment of writing. The study was one of a world-wide series, others having been concerned with Europe and Turkey, Latin America, India, Indonesia, and Japan and Korea. The series was undertaken by The Institute of Research on Overseas Programs, Michigan State University, and supported by The Carnegie Corporation of New York.