This conference, held under the auspices of the British Ministry of Overseas Development, was the twenty-first in the series of annual University of Cambridge Overseas Studies Committee conferences. Originally devoted to colonial administration and development, especially in Africa, their concern has now spread to the third world as a whole. All the same, among the 150-odd academics, administrators, and politicians who attended, Africans and Africanists still predominated, as did African examples in the 14 papers presented.