During 1964 the External Research Staff of the Department of State took the initiative in efforts to achieve better coordination of government contracting for foreign area and foreign policy research. With the enthusiastic support of some 20 government agencies, the Staff has established a mechanism for more systematic coordination: the interdepartmental Foreign Area Research Coordination Group (FAR). The FAR Group seeks to ensure cooperative effort in research activities, prevent duplication among agencies, encourage maximum use of research results, and promote efficient use of nongovernment research. The Group's activities focus on research in the social sciences related to U.S. foreign policy--political, economic, and cultural. FAR meetings during 1964 have concentrated on research problems in the fields of China, Latin America, and Africa. Out of these meetings have emerged interagency subcommittees of research specialists charged with identifying substantive research problems and recommending courses of action to the parent FAR Group. The External Research Staff serves as executive secretariat of the Group.

Two of the papers which were presented at the third meeting, in December 1964, are likely to be of particular interest to members of the African Studies Association, and they are reproduced here by the kind permission of the writers and of the FAR Group. The two papers summarize some of the problems concerned with private research on Africa and with government-sponsored research on Africa.